ACCESS TO JUSTICE: CONFERENCE IN BOLGATANGA
Just north of Tamale is a very small city called Bolgatanga. From what I understand it is a part of another district called the Upper East. Tamale is in the Northern Region, but traveling from city to city, it is difficult to tell the difference.
The reason for the journey with only two weeks left in Tamale was to attend and cover a two-day conference on “Access to Justice for Women and Children”. The forum was being put on CUSO (a Canadian organization), and is linking Ghana with work being done in Peru and in Canada.
Attending the conference was a group of around 25 leaders in work concerning women and children in the Northern half of the country: this includes the Northern Region, the Upper East and the Upper West. Representatives were from government offices, large and small scale NGO’s, women’s groups, religious groups, and we also had a chief in attendance.
The purpose was to share and discuss the major issues and concerns regarding access to justice for women and children.
I was asked to attend the conference by Ato, who works as the Country Director for JHR and more commonly known for reading the news headlines every morning on the nation’s most heralded radio station, Joy FM. The main priorities were sending reports to Justice FM and Joy FM.
I made arrangements with the station to bring Somed, an attachee to the news department. While it took some time to arrange, we got everything in order on time to leave Monday night.
Somed was very excited about attending the conference. He had never left town to cover a story. He had also never reported for Joy FM, and was eager for the chance.
Monday night, arriving in Bolgatanga, we reached the Sandgarden Inn as the sun had just set. Over a dinner of fried chicken and fried rice, we got to know the organizers and a few of the delegates. Lawrence, Edith, Angela and Levida were the organizers, and made the time very enjoyable.
Settling into the hotel room, Somed and I had a two beds and satellite TV that allowed us to enjoy what felt like a huge selection of channels (10 instead of 2).
The next morning, we were up at 6:30AM, and enjoyed breakfast with the group just after 8AM.
As the program began, representatives from the struggle for improving the lives of women and children shared their stories.
There are widows who are smeared in shea butter and bathed with scalding, boiling water. They are not to flinch, and if they do, they are seen as guilty of the death of their husbands. There are women who make a living off of performing the ritualized genital mutilation. Brides are brought into marriage at the ages of 12, 13 14 and 15 with men often upwards of 40. Women accused of being witches are fortunate to be exiled from their communities and sent to the Gambaga “Witch” Camp, instead of being killed. What was of interest to note is that wealthy women of status are never accused of, or proven to be witches.
Other practices such as young men impregnating their cousins, who they are not permitted to marry, causing damage to the lives of the young women. The women are not allowed to marry, their children belong to the father of the boy that impregnated her, and the boy is allowed to go on with his life unscathed and unshamed.
Wealthy women take other women as “wives” and arrange for men to impregnate them; the children of such arrangements belong to the wealthy woman.
A complete void of women’s shelter’s, very little protection from rape, molestation and abuse, and a view of women that categorizes them as property passed from father’s to husbands has many more complications and nuances in every day life. Such examples are a woman that was nearly murdered be her brother-in-law when she refused to give him the land that had been owned her late husband, later pleading to police that he be released from custody and left alone due to her own fear for her life and the consequences of communal exile.
What it seems to boil down to is the intersection of the dysfunction that is born when a section of the human family looks at another section of the human family as inferior and as property, and people hiding behind the concept of tradition to serve their own selfish and deplorable interest and intentions.
We were also updated on the status of a domestic violence bill that is before the nation’s parliament. Apparently, under great pressure from many of the Ministers of Parliament, the clause of marital rape had to be removed, due to the people assertion, “how can it be rape when it’s your wife?”.
This is even more alarming, as these are educated professionals, appointed to represent the population, who are engaged with the international community as ambassadors of Ghana to the world, who refuse to recognize that “no means no” whether or not she is your wife.
I worked closely with Somed as he prepared his reports for Justice FM and Joy FM. I also found myself assisting Edith with all sorts of tasks necessary to keep the day running smoothly.
By the evening, my mind was overwhelmed with the amount of information and stories I had taken in that day.
Over a dinner of fish and rice, we talked about an array of topics, to a sort of dinner entertainment of Chelsea playing on the television screen.
That night, stomach pains kept me awake. I was unable to attend the conference in the morning due to some details I don’t need to get into. Somed attending the morning, and returned a number of time to the room we were sharing in order for my thoughts and assistance with his reports for the day.
At one point he commented that the chance he was getting to prove himself through attending the conference meant a lot to him. It really was warming to see him so elated and driven, as well as seeing him exposed to so many issues that remain unspoken in the region.
There will be a follow-up to this conference in a national meeting in Accra to take place in February. I will do all that I can to arrange for Somed to be in attendance. It was a great growing experience for him; he was beaming with another level of confidence.
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