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AFRICAN WOMEN'S
HUMAN RIGHTS |
Address:
H/N 49, 3rd
Crescent
Asylum Down
Post Office Box 4889
Accra
Ghana, West Africa
Tel:
233(0)21-224878
Fax:
233(0)21-232296
E-mail: lawagh@hotmail.com
Promoting the human rights of women in Ghana and in Africa
LAWA-Ghana has undertaken a number of projects by itself and in collaboration with a number of partners both locally and internationally.
B. PROMOTION OF WOMEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS IN AFRICA SEMINAR
C. ADVANCING WOMEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS GLOBALLY PROJECT
D. PARTICIPATION IN WORK OF THE GLOBAL ALLIANCE FOR JUSTICE EDUCATION
LAWA-Ghana co-sponsored a consultation organised by the United States based International Human Rights Law Group in Accra, Ghana in November 1998 for women's rights groups in the West African sub-region. The theme for the consultation was on African women's inheritance rights. At the seminar, participants who were drawn from both English speaking and French speaking countries in West Africa discussed the problems faced by women with regard to the right to inherit property and the way the legal systems in paticipant's respective countries have addressed the problem a number of strategies were outlined for participants to collaborate to improve the rights of women to inherit in respective countries. One strategy was the setting aside of a day in each year for the observance of the right of African women to inherit in an equitable manner. This day was to be celebrated in each African country with various events scheduled to draw attention to the issue. Following this consultation, LAWA-Ghana has initiated a number of projects aimed at improving women's right to inheritance.
B. PROMOTION OF WOMEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS IN AFRICA SEMINAR
LAWA-Ghana also participated in a seminar organised by the International Women Judges Foundation (IWJF) and the International Women's Human Rights Clinic of Goergetown University Law Center, to strategize to promote women's human rights in Africa. The seminar was organized in Nairobi, Kenya from December 11-14, 1998 with sponsorship from the Ford Foundation's East Africa Office and the Stanley Foundation of the United States. There were participants from the U.S.A., Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa and Ghana. Participants included lawyers, judges and law professors.
C. ADVANCING WOMEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS GLOBALLY PROJECT
LAWA-Ghana has been working on a project with the International Women's Human Rights Center (IWHRC), a clinical program at Georgetown University Law Center (GULC). The project was conceived in 1998 and actually began working in Janaury 1999. The six-year program was designed to build new alliances between law professors, their students and women judges in Africa and the Unites States (and later in other regions as well). USAID, Washington DC. U.S.A., funded the first year of the project.
By this project, LAWA-Ghana chooses a legal project it desires to undertake in Ghana and the IWHRC students' conduct research on the project and have discussions with members of LAWA-Ghana on the topic by way of teleconferences, which is facilitated by the Public Affairs Section of the United States Embassy in Ghana. LAWA-Ghana also suggests reading materials for the students and provide background information on selected topics. Drafts of student's memoranda are forwarded to LAWA-Ghana for review by e-mail and the final outcome of the research is then used for LAWA-Ghana's advocacy work in Ghana.
The following are the projects the partners have worked on so far:-
(i) Spring Semester 1999: The partners whorked on draft a comprehensive law on domestic violence for Ghana. Ghana has no comprehensive law on domestic violence and LAWA-Ghana felt the need to initiate such a project for purposes of advocating for the passage of such a law in Ghana.
(ii) Autumn Semester 1999: LAWA-Ghana suggested that the partners work drafting proposals for a law on the distribution of properties between spouses at divorce. Article 1992 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana requires the Ghanaian Parliament to enact a law to regulate the distribution of properties between spouses at divorce in an equitable manner. This has not been done yet and LAWA-Ghana decided to work on a model law as its contribution to the process.
(iii) Spring Semester 2000: LAWA-Ghana suggested that the partners work on drafting a law on employment discrimination for Ghana, focusing especially on sexual harrassment. The project was aimed at contributing towards the on-going review of the primary law on labour in Ghana, the Labour Decree, 1967 (NLCD 157). Existing provisions in this law bars women from working in industrial concerns in the night and from working in underground mines.
The partners also worked on a litigation project aimed at challenging the disriminatory provisions in the Labour Decree. Appropriate notices have been forwarded to the Attorney General's offices and the suit will soon be filed in court.
(iv) Autumn Semester 2000: Proposals for the removal of the marital rape exemption in the Criminal COde, 1960 (Act 29) and for the review of the Custumary Marriage and Divorce Registration Law, 1985 (PNDCL 112).
The final memorandum from the projects which contains detailed anylyses of the issue being addressed from an international law perspective as well as comparative national laws from other countries, are forwarded to LAWA-Ghana. LAWA-Ghana reviews the documents to suit its purposes after which the documents are forwarded to the Law Reform Commision of Ghana and to the Attorney General's office for action on them. Some of the documents have already been forwarded. Members of parliament are also lobbied as well.
LAWA-Ghana also uses the outcome of the projects for its advocacy work locally. Seminars are organised to present the outcomes to different groups for purposes of consensus building and to push forward its agenda for the promotion of women's human rights forward. It has also participated in seminars organised by different groups. For example it participated in workshops organised by FIDA-Ghana and the Ghana branch of Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) on domestic violence and presented its draft law at these fora.
D.PARTICIPATION IN WORK OF GLOBAL ALLIANCE FOR JUSTICE EDUCATION
LAWA-Ghana participated in the inaugural conference of the Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE) in Kerala, in the southern part of India in December 1999. The aim of the conference was the sharing of ideas on how to make legal education more justice oriented. Participants who came from 32 different countries made presentatiojs on what they were doing in their respective countries and programs to make legal education more justice oriented. LAWA-Ghana presented its unique programme with the IWHL of GULC as an example of how law professors and activists could work together to promote justice education to their mutual benefit. LAWA-Ghana also emphasized the advantages of modern technology in facilitating the collaboration across two continents. The West Africa Office of Ford Foundation provided funding for LAWA-Ghana to attend the conference.
- Some members of LAWA-Ghana provided consultancy services to the African Women Lawyers Association (AWLA) in the year 2000, in the development of a trainig manual for the training of the Ghana Police Service on the handling of victims of domestic violence. They also acted as resource persons in the train-the trainers' seminar organised for 20 members of AWLA in the use of the manual for training the Ghana Police.
- LAWA-Ghana members also acted as resource persons in a series of training programs organized by the Ark Foundation, a Ghanaian NGO for the training of counsellors of victims of domestic violence.
- Some members of of LAWA-Ghana provide legal services for victims of domestic violence, by assiting them to access the courts and in obtaining court orders to protect them from violence from their male partners.
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We
have received generous support from the following organizations
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| USAID, U.S.A | FORD FOUNDATION, W.A. | UNICEF, GHANA | DANIDA, GHANA |