Introduction

The Veiled Status Of Gender In Ghana

In Ghana, serious efforts towards gender development could not have been initiated without the gradual unveiling of the shadowy status of gender in the country.
First, the Ghanaian environment, being extremely friendly even to foreigners, presents a facade of gender-friendliness and gender-equality. Logically, therefore, for a long time, the environment has been considered to be without gender-bias.

Secondly, Ghana as a nation has shown commitment to all international laws, rules and regulations that seek to ensure the enhancement of the status of women. In 1986, Ghana actively participated in the ratification of the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies (FLS) for accelerating the status of women.

Before then in 1979, she has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and had become an active member of the 17-member CEDAW Committee.

Besides, Ghana, in 1976, had committed its people to the observance of the commitments of the United Nation International Women's Year and subsequently those of the United Nations Decade for Women (1976 - 1985). Later on, Ghana also signed the African Charter on Human Rights and Peoples Rights (also known as the "African Charter") and participated in the African Platform of Action (1995), the Beijing Platform for Action (PFA-1995) and expressed commitment to their declarations and resolutions towards gender-protection.

Thirdly, the Ghanaian constitution has always ensured the protection of gender. For instance, no laws in Ghana ban women from participating in politics, social life, economic endeavors or hinders their effective participation in any area of life. In effect, there are no laws in the statutory books of Ghana that are discriminatory against gender. It has even been noted that "the colonial laws that required a woman to leave employment on marriage or on becoming pregnant or on having a child, have been abolished, and women now have the same right as men to vote and be voted for into office and so on."

On paper, therefore, the environment in Ghana is not gender-bias. Rather portrays a situation of gender-friendliness and gender-protectiveness. But protectiveness and friendliness stop on the paper on which they are designed! In Ghana as in many African countries where tradition is constantly at war with modernity, the bad news about the otherwise good news of gender- protection is that traditional attitudes and prejudices, outmoded cultural practices and religious beliefs have virtually eroded the Ghanaian gender community of the full benefits it could derive from the guarantees offered by the numerous resolutions and declarations intended to impact positively on its development. This same cultural setting has also prevented the beneficiaries of gender-equality from benefiting wholly from the nation's constitutional guarantees.

So while observers, looking at the issues of gender from a distance, will jubilate that Ghanaian women, for instance, have nothing to worry about, the truth is that when the veil on the true status of the Ghanaian woman is removed, she will be found to be, in all respects, generally unequal, subordinate, subjugated, brutalized and dehumanized by the opposite sex.

The Ghanaian situation has been likened to the Animal Farm fable in which although all animals are supposedly equal, some remain in reality, more equal than others.