Adjournment of cases discourage women – Gender Centre

Frederick Asiamah

The last decade in Ghana has seen a great deal of research-based advocacy and capacity building by gender-based organisations. These activities have involved many actors. In this profile, the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre (the Gender Centre for short) justifies its involvement in the struggle for gender equity and makes a case for certain policy reforms.

Its first concern is that justice delivery is too slow and efforts toward securing equitable access to justice for both men and women seem to be suffering a setback owing to the frequent adjournment of court cases. Many women in local communities have become fed up with the system due to these adjournments. The issue needs prompt attention to bring back the confidence of women as far as the quest for justice is concerned, according to Mrs. Margaret Brew-Ward, Programme Manager of the Gender Centre.

Background

The Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre was established in 1995 as a non-profit, non-governmental organization committed to the promotion and protection of the human rights of women. It envisions a society where women’s rights are fully promoted and protected, and where women are able to participate in national development at all levels. This informs a mission to create a knowledge base through research, advocacy and allied activities on issues of critical importance to women aimed at law and policy reform.

Out of the vision and mission have emerged five core objectives. “Our core objective is to research into key issues that affect women’s human rights,” said Mrs. Brew-Ward. The full list of objectives include: to research on key women’s rights issues to provide evidence for advocacy for legal and policy reform; to maintain and coordinate a resource centre with both national and international publications on gender and human rights; and to develop and publish materials on various subjects related to women’s human rights. The others are to support the development of networks and coalitions for improved policy and legal advocacy on women’s rights issues; and to provide training to major stakeholders in areas of human rights, gender, counseling, alternative dispute resolution, project planning and implementation, lobbying, advocacy, rights awareness, and leadership development for women.

Strengths

The Programme Manager posits that the Gender Centre’s most potent ability is to conduct a research, interpret and translate the findings into a community-based project. We can say that the Centre has good reputation in terms of delivering good quality programmes. The Gender Centre (GC) is also both responsive and proactive and uses opportunities as they arise.

As well, the strength of the GC is in a multi-skilled staff, which is knowledgeable in issues of violence against women and children, has training capabilities, is well-versed in proposal writing, and has project management skills. Again, the GC has a unique style of not being directly involved in the implementation of projects but builds the capacity of local partners and involves them in the conceptualization, design, implementation and monitoring of interventions for communities.

The changing face of advocacy calls for constant updating and upgrading of knowledge base and expertise. In response to this, the GC has embarked on a human resource and organizational development process aimed at building its capacity to meet the current and emerging demands in its external environment.

Over the years, GC has also developed a good track record of prudent financial management and integrity with development partners.

Networking

It is not the tradition of the GC to work in isolation. “We work with like-minded organisations”, says the Programme Manager. She adds that networking and collaboration constitute one of the GC’s core strategies and it allows for learning and pooling of resources for advocacy on women’s rights. She names ABANTU, the Ark Foundation, the Women Initiative for Self Empowerment (WISE), the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA)-Ghana, and the Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF – Ghana) as like-minded organisations which are implementers. GC plays a lead role in three coalitions namely the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT), the Domestic Violence Coalition and the Women’s Manifesto Coalition.

Also, the GC has, at one time or the other, implemented community level programmes through the following partner organisations in various parts of Ghana: General Agricultural Worker’s Union (GAWU), Centre for Development of People (CEDEP), Amassachina Self Help Association, and the Bawku East Women’s Development Association (BEWDA), Prolink and Rural Watch.

There are also state agencies that are partners either directly or indirectly. “At the district level where we are working, all our training programmes involve the police, Department of Social Welfare and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ),” according to Mrs. Brew-Ward. Other agencies are the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the Ministry of Health.

The list of stakeholders cannot exclude chiefs and community members. The GC also recognizes the importance of the media. Mrs Brew-Ward says creating public awareness involves great amount of advocacy which in turn requires the use of the media, especially radio stations.

Funding

The Programme Manager describes GC’s donors as like-minded organisations which support the GC “either financially or non-finacially.” These include Comic Relief (UK), WOMANKIND Worldwide (UK), Ghana Research and Advocacy Programme (G-RAP), Department for International Development (DFID) of UK, the Royal Netherlands Embassy, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and AWDF.

WOMANKIND has served as a channel for GC’s major donors Comic Relief, and again was a channel for DFID’s support for GC’s latest project titled Gender, Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS, which kicked off last May. Mrs. Brew-Ward also mentioned the Ghana Aids Commission as funding a project being executed in partnership with Prolink in the Volta Region.

She could not also forget G-RAP’s one-a-half year core support valued at $150,000 for the period July 2008 to December 2009. She said the G-RAP funding was timely, coming at a time “when the Comic Relief funding had ended and we were still looking for funding because we had developed the HIV project…That G-RAP support helped us concentrate on proposal development and…sent proposal to AWDF.” Consequently, GC has secured funding from AWDF. In sum, the G-RAP funding has helped GC to put its systems in place such as strengthen its board, communication plan and revise strategic plan.

Activities

The GC’s core objectives also constitute its programme areas. The Programme Manager points out that the Centre has been “focusing on reducing violence against women for the past ten to thirteen years…and also promoting gender equality.” It adopts research, use of pilots, working with partners, community based approach, networking and alliance building, and capacity building for staff, partner NGOs and state agencies as key strategies to execute its programmes.

There are two major research publications to the credit of the GC. The first Violence against Women and Children in Ghana, published in 2000 was the result of a 1998 study across the country. By mid-June 2009, the second paper, The Role of Gender Norms and Domestic Violence in Increasing Women and Girls’ Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS infection (2009), which resulted from another nationwide research, was going through final editing.

“The research report was used to advocate for the passage of the Domestic Violence Act in Ghana… Also, we used the findings to develop a project we called the Nkyinkyim Anti-Violence Project. The thrust of that community-based project was to provide support to abused women and children even though in the end some men also used the facility or system at the community level.”

The Nkyinkyim Project, funded by Comic Relief through WOMANKIND, has since 2005 been expanded from three to 15 communities in four districts of four regions and is being implemented through four partner organisations. In the Atwima-Nwabiagya District of the Ashanti Region, CEDEP is implementing the programme at Kwanfinfi, Nkrumah, Nyinawusu and Serebuoso. GAWU holds the fort in Akawani, Old Ntronang, Akenkase and Atobriso all in the Kwaebibirem District of the Eastern Region. In the Upper East Region, BEWDA implements the project at Teogo, Lamboya, Saaka and Yikurugu in the Bawku West District. Lastly, Amassachina manages the project at Chansa, Danko and Kperisi in the Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region.

The Gender, Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS Project which commenced in May this year is based on the findings of the current research, The Role of Gender Norms and Domestic Violence in Increasing Women and Girls’ Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS infection. From the research, it is found that “It is not only promiscuity that leads women to be infected with HIV/AIDS but there are other gender things that we need to look at to combat the disease.” According to the Programme Manager, “If we concentrate only on the ABC approach, which is Abstinence, Be faithful and Condom Use, we are not going to make headway. But we need to look at the gender norms especially women in intimate partner relationships.”

The project is funded by DFID-UK through WOMANKIND and is being piloted for three years in partnership with 3 organizations. Rural Watch is in charge of the project at Nsokwao in the Koforidua Municipality of the Eastern Region while Prolink oversees the project at Papesi in the Kadjebi West District of the Volta Region. The last community project is at Manwe in the Wa Municipality and is managed by Amassachina. The project is aimed at minimizing women’s susceptibility to HIV infection resulting from gender inequality.

In between these two major projects, there was The Safe Schools Counseling Project, which was a two-year pilot project which sensitized intervention communities on issues of school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) and provided counseling services to abused children. It was implemented in thirty communities in three districts namely; Ajumako Enyan Essiam, Assin North and Assin South districts in the Central Region. The project was funded by USAID through the Safe Schools Project.

As part of its activities, the GC has established and operated a Women’s Human Rights Resource Centre to provide evidence-based information for women’s work in Ghana. In addition, it has developed: the Gender Lens Newsletter which is published biannually. Other publications of the GC include Information Pack on Violence against Women (2004), including pamphlets, posters etc.; A guide to the setting up of the Rural Response System (2008), a training manual on violence against women; Counseling Manual on School-Related Gender-Based Violence (2008); and Breaking the Silence and Challenging the Myths around Violence Against Women and Children in Ghana (2000).

Achievements/Impact

There are two achievements that are dear to Mrs. Brew-Ward. “One of our biggest successes I’ll say is helping to get the DV Act passed in Ghana. Because for me…the passage is an indication that as a state we’ve come to the realization and recognition that violence against women is not acceptable.” In the run up to the passage of the Act, the GC played a major role in the establishment of the Domestic Violence (DV) Coalition. Apart from holding a steering committee member position, the GC supported the development of the concept for the work of the coalition, provided space for the coalition’s meetings and financial support towards the nation-wide consultation on the DV Act.

The other achievement is that through its community-base projects, it has helped to entrench consultation between men and women in the decision-making process. “Now you could see women really talking during community meetings and are contributing and participating in community decision making which was not the case before this project…and also now in their own homes… the men are realizing the need to consult women in decision-making whether at home or at the community level,” Mrs. Brew-Ward stated.

In terms of impact, the GC says it has made substantial impact and will give itself a score of seven out of ten. On the whole, the GC believes the impact of women’s rights organisations will measure at least six on a scale of one-to-ten.

Challenges

According to the Programme Manager, funding is a challenge and the lack of it means “you are not able to offer better remuneration packages and therefore not able to retain high caliber staff.” They come and work with you and after building their capacity over a year or two somebody snatches because they can offer better working conditions.

Her view is that to combat this, more donors need to consider the option of core support. “If you give only project funding and you don’t give core support, how would the organisation even survive and be able to do that work and develop?” she queries.

On the other hand, “In the district where we’ve been working our main challenge with the police is the transfers.” The programme officer regrets that after spending a lot of resources to train police officers on issues regarding DV, the officers are transferred within a short period, robbing the organisation of the opportunity to work with experienced personnel. Even so, the police still have a challenge with resources, especially in rural communities.

Expectations

A priority is to see women have easy and speedy access to justice. The GC expects to continue its partnership with other women’s organisations to put into action the National Platform for Action. One of their immediate concerns will be to push for a Legislative Instrument that will drive the full enforcement of the DV Act.

Regarding the fight against HIV/AIDS, the GC will within the short to medium term push for the adoption of a national policy that will compel all implementers of HIV/AIDS programmes to include a gender dimension or lose funding for such programmes.