WHY GHANA?
In the West African region, marked by conflict and extreme poverty, Ghana stands out for stability and co-ordinated development. Ghana scores the highest in the region in terms of UNDP Human Development indicators -- and overall poverty has decreased in the last decade.However, 79% of the population live on less than US $2 per day (UNDP, 2005). Poverty and social exclusion is deepening amongst some groups and regions, particularly women who are disproportionately affected by poverty and communities in the more arid northern and central regions of the country. Literacy rates continue to be skewed in favour of males: adult literacy is 65.8% compared to 42.3% for females nationally (Ghana Statistical Service 2003).
Women’s economic empowerment relies on agriculture where they constitute 60% of food-crop farmers. However, women in rural areas are particularly disadvantaged in terms of access to land, credit and new technologies. In urban areas, men occupy the majority of positions in the shrinking public and private formal sector and women are mostly found in the
informal sector, where incomes and work conditions are far less secure and stable. Despite this, economic policies have failed to address women’s specific disadvantages and the liberalisation of trade rules and curbs on the role of the government in formulating trade policies have exacerbated the negative impact on women, since they provide the majority of goods and services within the country.
Although women have equal status with men in law, Ghana, like many African countries, operates a pluralistic legal system and, in certain areas, statutory law operates side by side with traditional customary law. Under customary systems, men take precedence in matters such as divorce, property and inheritance rights. In addition, traditional practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM), bride price, forced marriage, polygyny, surrogate marriages and trokosi -- in which young girls are forced into slavery to atone for offences committed by family members -- further compromise women’s rights. Whilst the Ghanaian Government has made some positive steps, such as criminalising FGM and forced marriages, official condemnation has not eliminated these practices in traditional, rural communities where customary law operates as the laws of powerful Chiefs are still far more important than legislation decided in far-off Accra.
Whilst the Government has made efforts to address weak health and education systems, women’s-rights organisations are growing disillusioned with what they see as the failure of
the Government to keep its promises to women, such as the introduction of affirmative-action measures to increase women’s participation in politics –- women currently constitute a woeful 11% of parliament. Women’s organisations are also calling on the Government to show a greater commitment to issues affecting women, such as domestic violence, and representation in decision-making bodies and to strengthen the Women’s Ministry in order to provide guidance on gender policy for the overall work of Government.
Updated: 15 December 2008
