Chiefs urged to abolish harmful cultural practices
ActionAid Ghana (AAG), a rights-based organisation, has held a dialogue with chiefs in Bolgatanga to develop a road-map to reform or abolish harmful cultural practices that infringe on the fundamental human rights of people, particularly women and children.
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It was to chart the way forward on how to reform harmful cultural practices such as widowhood rites and female genital mutilation (FGM).
While commending some of the chiefs for working tirelessly to end certain negative and harmful cultural practices, the Programmes Manager of ActionAid Ghana (AAG) in charge of Upper East Region, Mr James Kusi-Boama, in his address, appealed to those that had been inactive to work hard.
He said, for instance, that widowhood rites and FGM were still practised by some communities in the region.
Mr Kusi-Boama said a research conducted by AAG revealed that the five selected communities, namely Mognori, Bardo, Mandago, Widana and Waanre in the Bawku Municipality and Pusiga District, were still practising FGM.
Mrs Vida Nsoh, a widow from Anateem at Sumbrungu, near the Bolgatanga Municipality, narrated the ordeal she went through when her husband died. She said she was stripped naked in public, made to drink some concoctions, and confined in a room for a number of days.
She added that through the intervention of AAG and its partners, such as the Widows and Orphans Movement (WOM), widowhood rites had reduced in the area but insisted that the practice was still rife in parts of the municipality.
The President of the Regional House of Chiefs, Naba Segri Bewong, condemned such negative and harmful cultural practices and said the house would work hard to curtail the menace.
He bemoaned the practice and said instead of consoling widows in their mourning state, society rather subjected them to inhuman treatment, adding that it was a gross violation of their fundamental human rights which could not be allowed to go on.
“We the chiefs have all the power it takes, as stipulated in the Constitution, to reform and abolish harmful cultural practices and we must endeavour to do that,” Naba Bewong said.
According to him, he has abolished widowhood rites and other harmful cultural practices in the Sakoti area, which is his traditional seat, and urged others to do same.