African Women Lawyers Association

Membership

On the local level, AWLA Ghana has been actively involved in a number of projects aimed at realizing some of these goals:

1 DAY OF ACTION
2 PROPERTY RIGHTS
3 TRAINING OF SECURITY AGENCIES IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
4 CHILDRENS' RIGHTS TRAINING FOR THE MILITARY

1 DAY OF ACTION

In 1999, AWLA was elected to be the focal NGO in a Law Group to mark a "DAY OF ACTION" organized annually by the International Human Rights Law Group and the West African Civil Society. This activity is aimed at raising consciousness and to draw the attention of international, national and regional Governments, groups and individuals to the need to ban or review customary inheritance practices which deny women the right inherit land and other landed properties in equal proportions to men.

The Day has been observed every year since 1999 with the following activities:

Press conferences and Media Briefings. Please go to our Press Releases page to read the Press Statements
Colloquium with the Women's Caucus in Parliament which drew attention to the need for the Intestate Succession Law, 1985 (PNDCL 111) to be reviewed in the light of the myriad of problems with its implementation.
Briefings of Minister of Women and Children's Affairs and top officials in charge of gender and child rights issues.

The Day of Action is organized simultaneously in other West Africa countries namely Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Gambia, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.

To commemorate the Day of Action in 2002, a mini durbar of Chiefs Queenmothers, members of District Assemblies and opinion leaders was held in Mpraeso in the Kwahu South District. The Kwahu South District is known for its strong adherence to the matrilineal system of inheritance. The Durbar was made more poignant by the testimonies of the widows and children who had suffered violations of their inheritance rights. Please go to our press releases page to read a few of these narrations. Simultaneously with the durbar, some AWLA members were interviewed by a local radio station about the Day of Action and AWLA's work in general.

Pressmen and AWLA members at Press Conferences marking the Day of Action

Later in 2002, AWLA launched a 'Break the Silence! Report the Violence' Campaign as part of a 16-day programme of activism against gender-based violence in Ghana. The Campaign was a component of the national training programme to sensitise the society on domestic violence and related issues. AWLA identified low reportage of domestic violence cases as a problem for the Police during its first national training programme. This Campaign is therefore intended to create and increase awareness of the need to report domestic violence cases to the Police. Posters, flyers, stickers were prepared for dissemination to all the 647 Police stations in the country and a radio jingle to be played at selected radio stations nationwide. It is our hope that the Campaign has made significant contribution to eliminating domestic violence in Ghana.In the press releases section, we have produced some of the solidarity messages we received in the course of the campaign.

In respect of the continued strategy on inheritance rights, the Law Group held an initial "Trainer of Trainers" programme. This involved bringing together trainers from South Africa and Botswana with West African Civil Society NGOs to work actively on issues involving gender and inheritance rights. It focused on specific techniques, strategies and approaches for reaching grassroots communities through mobilization of public education techniques, and also for designing and implementing broad-based community-oriented comprehensive outreach strategies.
Back to top

2 PROPERTY RIGHTS

AWLA submitted a position paper to the Attorney General's Department with specific recommendations for the drafting of a new law in this area. This initiative became necessary in the light of the various problems and short- comings of existing legislation. AWLA has also collaborated extensively with other gender groups in advocacy in this area of the law.
Back to top

3 TRAINING OF SECURITY AGENCIES IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

AWLA is the lead NGO in Ghana involved in a comprehensive national programme in the training of Police Officers on the issue of Domestic Violence and Violence against Women. The need for sensitization of police personnel on issues of domestic violence cannot be overemphasized since the police are the first point of contact for victims of Domestic Violence. Hitherto, such cases were treated as trivial or as falling in the family domain, and were consequently rarely prosecuted or sanctioned. AWLA identified the need to change the attitude of the Police and to equip them with suitable intervention skills. With funding from the Danish International Agency for Development (DANIDA), a comprehensive training manual on Domestic Violence and Violence against Women was compiled for use in the training programs.

Topics covered in the training were Gender, Human Rights Instruments relating to Gender Violence (National, Regional and International), Intervention skills and some practical insight into how Gender-violence cases can be handled more effectively.

The initial phase of the training targeted 141 senior police personnel. Of these 15 came from each of the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Eastern, Brong Ahafo and Volta Regions; 16 from the Western Region; 14 from the Central Region and 12 each from the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.

Pictures from our training sessions

SAVE THE CHILDREN

Since December 2001 AWLA has been working in partnership with Save the Children, Sweden as the focal NGO on a project aimed at putting children's rights on the training agenda of the Military, both at the national and regional levels. This would ensure that countries in the ECOWAS sub-region contributing troops to Peacekeeping Forces in turn give training on children's rights and child protection to those Military personnel.
Back to top