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Ms Margo Waterval (right), Member, United Nations Human Rights Committee, speaking at the forum as Ms Adrea Meraz (left), a Human Rights Officer, Centre for Civil & Political Rights, look on
Ms Margo Waterval (right), Member, United Nations Human Rights Committee, speaking at the forum as Ms Adrea Meraz (left), a Human Rights Officer, Centre for Civil & Political Rights, look on

‘Enforce laws that deal with human right abuses’

The government has been urged to enforce the laws that deal with Female Genital Mutilation (FMG) and other inhuman practices in the country.

The Technical Advisor for the Human Rights Advocacy Centre, Madam Wendy Abbey, who made the call, said issues such as stigmatisation and discrimination against persons with disabilities, defective mental health care sytems and violence among inmates in the country’s mental institutions were persisting notwithstanding their prohibition by law.

She was speaking at a meeting between the Human Rights Advocacy Centre and the Centre for Civil and Political Rights and Civil Society Organisations in Accra.

She said the effective enforcement of those laws could be done through collaboration between the government and other stakeholders.

“As a democratic state, it is important that we put issues of human rights topmost in our discussions as they would go a long way to help with national development,” Madam Abbey stressed.

Generally, the meeting uggested that strengthening of education and laws on human rights, creating awareness of human rights issues and stakeholder responsibilities, would go a long way to change people’s attitude towards the vulnerable in society. 

Madam Abbey expressed the hope that the government would consider recommendations from the meeting and implement them in the hope of effectively dealing with concerns regarding human rights in the country.

Advocacy

She said in an attempt to deal with the challenges of human rights, the Human Rights Advocacy Centre and the Centre for Civil and Political Rights and Civil Society Organisations were, through advocacy, contributing to the sensitisation and awareness creation of human rights issues.

“We are doing our best to increase dialogue and awareness of matters concerning human rights in order to bring about changes in attitude,” she said.

She urged the government and other stakeholders, therefore, to provide support and ensure that laws concerning matters of human rights were enforced.

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Media collaboration

A member of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee, Ms Margo Waterval, noted that human rights issues were not receiving the required attention because the government was unable to effectively implement policies that had been recommended.

She said eliminating human rights abuses was a collective responsibility of the government, society and other interested parties.

Ms Waterval said it was also incumbent on the media to highlight issues of human rights so that society would become well informed and for measures to be taken to improve concerns.

“It is very important to also build the capacity of the media to make it easier for them to convey stories of abuse of the rights of citizens,” she said.

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