The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Lariba Zuweira Abudu, is calling for a concerted effort to combat gender-based violence in the country.
According to her, despite increased efforts to address the issue, violence against women and girls remains pervasive, particularly in Northern Ghana, due to what she describes as interference by traditional and cultural norms.
Speaking at the launch of the 16 Days of Activism Campaign against gender-based violence in Tamale, the Minister stressed the urgency for collective action to combat the issue.
“We have the right to an income, and we have the right to our bodies. The body is mine; I have every right to it. It is not your body. So, if you want to touch me and I am not in agreement, respect my body and leave me. If you don’t, I can report you, and the law can take you on. We need to let girls in schools know that.”
“… Gender-based violence is a common happening around us today that are serious offenses, and yet nobody is talking about them. And this is because of the beliefs, cultural norms, and all those that we are experiencing. And I think that this is the time to come together to stop gender-based violence, especially in the Northern region,” she said.
Meanwhile, preliminary findings from the upcoming 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) Report indicate that two in every five (41.6%) women aged 15 to 49 years who have ever had an intimate partner have experienced at least one form of intimate partner violence (IPV), the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has said.
This violence includes emotional, physical, or sexual violence.
The GSS made this known in its preliminary statistics on violence against women released on Friday, November 24, 2023.
The service underscored that 35.2 percent of these women had experienced emotional violence at least once; 22.7 percent had experienced physical violence at least once, and 11.2 percent had experienced sexual violence at least once.
