State intervention needed -To promote rights of citizens

Every woman, child and man, individually, and in a community with others, has the right to adequate food, Social Watch report 2008 has stated.
The report notes that in Ghana, state intervention is urgently needed in the market to facilitate local production and distribution of food, as well as to ensure basic rights for all citizens.
It said the current global food crisis highlights the fundamental conflict between the need to promote basic human rights and economic policies based on free trade and investment.
Social Watch report is a citizens’ global progress document on the causes of poverty and the struggle to eradicate poverty and gender equity to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth and the realisation of human rights.
The report is compiled by Social Watch, an international network of citizens and organisations from 60 countries including the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT).
The report which was on the theme “Right is the answer”, was launched in Accra by NETRIGHT, a coalition of organisations and individuals advocating for gender equity.
The report indicated that eradication of hunger and poverty was particularly crucial to securing the basic rights of women.
It stated that “unbridled pursuit of neo-liberal policies coupled with the unsustainable nature of globalisation policies has reduced possibilities for addressing social, economic, cultural and environmental rights of women.
“Even more worrying, when economic policies are implemented, women’s rights are the first to be sacrificed, on the premise that they have a “natural capacity” to cope with poverty, particularly in times of crisis”, the report further stated.
The Convenor of NETRIGHT, Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin, who spoke on issues affecting women throughout the world in general, with a focus on Ghanaian media reports in particular, observed that more than half of the stories reported on women were on those in politics and decision-making, with specific reference to this year’s elections.
Other stories, she noted, could be located within the general theme of violence against women, women’s health, beauty and entertainment, women and the economy as well as discriminatory practices against women.
Some of the stories of violence against women, Dr Mensah-Kutin reviewed included murders, rape and battering. She also cited an example in January when a 32-year-old man, Kwasi Akowah, shot his wife, Abena Saamah, 29, and later committed suicide at Kenyasi in the Asutifi District of the Brong-Ahafo Region.
She also referred to a story in which one Thomas Alan Tichler, a Briton, was accused of indecently assaulting a three-year-old girl.
Apparently Thomas came to Ghana under the auspices of the Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) and was a guest of the girl’s parents.
She cited another incident where a 45-year-old man allegedly defiled a 12-year-old girl after blindfolding, gagging and tearing her panties. The girl collapsed and was rushed to hospital for treatment.
Dr Mensah-Kutin referred to several stories on incest including one where a 65-year-old Cathechist defiled his five-year-old granddaughter, and another in the Ghanaian Times of September 3, 2008 which said the number of husbands suffering physical abuse at the hands of their wives was increasing, compared to women.
She said the real situation, according to a rejoinder by the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) in the September 15, 2008 issue of the Ghanaian Times indicated that only the records at the Ministries’ offices of the unit had been cited.
On women’s health, many of the stories Dr Mensah-Kutin referred to were mainly on maternal mortality, breast cancer awareness, HIV/AIDS and treatment issues.
On the economy, she said some of the stories featured the contributions and plight of “Kayayee”, skills and entrepreneurial training for women, calls for micro-credit facilities for women and complaints from market women about space constraints for displaying wares.
On elections 2008, Dr Mensah-Kutin cited interesting developments demonstrated by women in the elections through their active participation in the primaries as well as issues of women as running mates of presidential aspirants.
Related to these stories, she noted, was the fact that the landscape for women was changing as far as the situation of women was concerned, saying that change could only occur when women themselves spoke out.
Dr Mensah-Kutin advised women to start with the underlying challenges posed by how the flawed economic and political systems within which women’s rights promotions had to occur and address their oppressive and discriminatory characters.
Three prominent women were awarded for their outstanding contributions to the progress of women in Ghana for the year 2008.
They were: Ms Ajoa Yeboah-Afari, former Editor of the Ghanaian Times; Ms Anna Bossman, the Deputy Commissioner of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), and Ms Catherine Tsagli, the Head of the Women’s Wing of the Association of Physically Challenged Persons.
The award winners expressed their profound gratitude to NETRIGHT for the honour done them.

* A group of NETRIGHT members displaying a copy each of the Social Watch which was launched at this year’s ‘review of the status of women’ by the NETRIGHT.