Ghana

WOMANKIND has been working with women in Ghana since 1989.? Our work there focuses on reducing violence against women through community-based action teams (COMBATs).?

The COMBATs are made up of equal numbers of women and men, elected by their communities. They liaise closely with the community, including village elders and religious leaders. The teams determine their own solutions to working with individual survivors and perpetrators of violence, in a simple but groundbreaking approach to preventing violence against women.

Making a difference

Our partners in Ghana are seeing real changes:

More women have the confidence to report abuse

Many women have said that the programme has improved their relationships with their husbands, who are less violent towards them

Members of the police and judiciary who have been trained by our partners say they are now less likely to blame women suffering from domestic violence, where once they would have believed they had brought it on themselves

WOMANKIND’s lead partner in Ghana - the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre – is part of the National Coalition on Domestic Violence. After several years of strong lobbying, in May 2007 the Ghanaian Government passed the Domestic Violence Act. The Coalition is now working closely with the Ministry for Women and Children (MOWAC) to implement the Act.

Last updated: 20 August 2007