Campaign to fight against gender discrimination launched
A coalition of community-based activists, led by the Rayuwa Foundation, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has launched a campaign to end discriminatory religious and traditional practices against women and girls.
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The campaign which was launched in Accra with support from the Carter Centre, an international NGO, and other stakeholders in Ghana is to curb various forms of discriminatory practices, including child marriage, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), widowhood rites, denial of access to formal education among other practices that exist in some communities in the country.
At the launch, the Executive Director of Rayuwa Foundation, Miss Asmau Ayub, said despite relentless efforts by various stakeholders to end these practices, women and girls continued to be victims of such circumstances.
“There is, therefore, the need to create awareness and knowledge about how discrimination against women and girls affect development and the well-being of society,” she said.
Miss Ayub urged the media and key stakeholders to garner the required support for actions that promoted communities in which men, women, boys and girls enjoyed same rights and privileges for sharing a common space and most of all, for being humans.
The Carter Centre
A Human Rights Associate of the Carter Centre, Miss Danielle Taylor, said the media campaign would provide an enabling environment to successfully achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 5, which related to promoting gender equality.
She reiterated her organisation’s commitment to support institutions and organisations which championed the cause of women and girls around the globe, saying: “The Carter Centre has been supporting countries and organisations around the world over the past 35 years to promote human rights.”
Government’s pledge
In a speech read on behalf of the Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs Gifty Twum Ampofo, she pledged government’s support and said the initiative would go a long way to create awareness of some of the key challenges confronting women and girls in their daily quest to contribute to Ghana’s development.
“Though there are no policies and interventions that can totally erase what culture has built for centuries, it will be possible if the government, private sectors, religious organisations and other stakeholders join hands in addressing the issues, then we can cause the much needed cultural shift,” she stated.
