Ghana intensifies efforts against gender-based violence
Ghana has intensified the combat against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) as well as elimination of all forms of violence against women and children.
Nana Oye Lithur, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, who said this at Ghana’s side event of the on-going 60th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW60) in New York, said gender-based violence must be eliminated not only in Ghana but across the world.
She said Ghana had adopted a programmatic approach to ending SGBV since 1997 which led to the establishment of the specialised Ghana Police Service Unit called the Women and Juvenile Unit (WAJU) in 1998.
Ghana’s statistics indicates that SGBV cases increased from 4,697 in 2010 to 7,572 in 2014 and out of a total of 34,887 cases recorded within the four-year period, female victims were 30,333 while males were 4,554.
Global figures shows that in the whole world one out of three women has been a victim of violence; out of 4.5 million victims of sexual exploitation, 98 per cent are women and girls.
It also shows that 133 million girls have suffered genital mutilation in 29 countries mainly in Africa and the Middle East and around 700 million women have been victims of forced marriages.
Nana Oye Lithur said in Ghana, 27 per cent of women had been sexually assaulted in their lifetime; and 11.2 per cent of children had been victims of rape and defilement while three in 10 women were forced by their male partners to have sex.
She said Ghana had undertaken various initiatives to end gender-based violence.
Source: GNA