Accra, March 19, GNA – The Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC) on Tuesday held a forum to disseminate findings on gender-based violence in schools for selected basic pupils within the Greater Accra region.Â
The forum was to alert the pupils on such violence and to educate them on what actions to take to either avoid being victims or to freely report perpetrators.
Speaking on the topic, ‘Gender-based Violence: Nature and prevalence in Ghanaian Schools’ Ms Jemilla Ariori, the Project Manager of HRAC said school pupils suffer physical violence like excessive physical punishment, fighting between students and bullying.
Others include emotional violence like teasing and name calling that leads to a child feeling miserable, humiliated afraid or unhappy. Sexual and harmful customary practices such as female genital mutilation; forced marriage and trokosi are other forms of violence.
She said 82 percent of schoolchildren interviewed in a recent survey conducted by HRAC had experienced some form of physical violence and another 92 percent of girls were reported to have been emotionally abused through insults by their teachers as compared to 81 percent of boys.
Ms Ariori indicated that the impact of the gender based violence on the education of the child is the reduction of concentration and participation in school activities, temporary absence from school, school dropout, unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.
She advised pupils not to be violent towards others and offer support to others experiencing violence. She asked pupils to avoid being in secluded areas with the opposite sex and always ensure that they walk home with friends.Â
Ms Wendy Abbey, Acting Executive Director, HRAC said the forum forms part of a two-year project being funded by Star-Ghana, a multi-donor pooled institution to undertake programmes that aimed at ending abuses children suffer in schools.
She said schools in the Volta, Eastern and Greater Accra regions are being featured in the project, which intends to propose a draft protocol on gender-based violence to be adopted by Ghana Education Service to address such issues in schools. GNA