Chapter 6

The New Lease Of Life

Entrenchment of democracy in the country through Election 2000 (held in December 2000) came with a lot of merit, one of which was the new lease of life it has brought to gender development.

The New Patriotic Party government, led by President J.A. Kufuor, has spent barely a year in the office, but its declared intentions on national issues, and its proclamations on issues requiring rescue from the politics of the previous regime, has rekindled hopes of gender development in the country.

Pres. J.A. Kufuor

The new government, through its promise of free enterprise for all social institutions, has provided the atmosphere required for the revival of the national machinery for gender development, the NCWD. With the government's guarantees of freedom from undue political interference in its works, the Council needs only to bring itself up to take its rightful position on gender development.

Also, the government has given guarantees of free and congenial atmosphere for the operations of NGO's and other civil society organization's operating in the country. The effect of this on gender development is the fresh empowerment that this development brings.

Further more, the government has started giving support and backing to the enactment and implementation of gender-relief laws. With this development, fresh hopes have arisen in the fight for the elimination of cultural practices, which subject women and girl-children to brutalization and violence. Stakeholders in gender development have already started waging war on the Trokosi system, for instance, while FIDA-Ghana is working hard for the implementation of gender-relief supportive laws.
Through its determined policy of stopping the serial killings of women, which has abated following the arrest of one suspect, the government has brought assurance of safety of life to Ghanaian women, and renewed faith in their ability to pursue their rights successfully.

Above all the government has set up a Ministry for Women and Children's Affairs to provide umbrella-mainstreaming support to gender issues. With such a ministry at the rank of cabinet and headed by a woman known to have women's rights activism in her blood, the marginalization of gender development, surely, has taken a back seat from the centre-stage it has occupied these past 20 years.
With all these new developments after a long dark night, gender development appears to have received the freshness of a new day in Ghana. With it, the spirit of the various gender action programs - the African Platform for Action (1995), the Beijing Platform for Action (PFA - 1995) etc. - will find a new birth in Ghana.

Several organizations, operating from various sectors of the policy, have taken up roles over the years and have had a great impact on restructuring gender imbalance in the country. It needs pointing out that it is largely through the committed and consistent roles of those organizations both collectively and individually, that the substance of gender development remained a national issue even while the national machinery was having its difficult times.

Among such organizations is FIDA- Ghana, the Federation of Woman Lawyers, an affiliate of the International Federation of Women Lawyers. Formed in 1974 by a small group of women lawyers, FIDA- Ghana has successfully spear headed many gender activities. Victims of violence and abuse who were previously handicapped, now receive adequate legal representation. The organization has provided legal fortification by putting at the disposal of the public a wide range of legal aid programs and facilities. Also, through various sensitization programs, the organization has increased gender awareness in many parts of the country. It has also assisted in many poverty alleviation programs.

The Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) is another body, which has helped greatly over the years to highlight and seek redress for victims of gender-bias. Using it authority to seek recourse to constitutional provisions, the commission has addressed several gender issues.

There is also the women and juvenile of the policy services (WAJU) which was set up to deal with cases of abuse of women children and men. Thus an opportunity has been created for the examination of cases involving violence and abuse of women, children and even men. Also avenues for redress have been opened.

Also contributing in various ways towards restoring gender balance, is the National Commission on Children, the child labor unit of the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare. There are various other women's organizations such as the Association of Women in the Media (ASWIM), Women in Broadcasting (WIB), Women in Engineering (WIN) and Women in Parliament, that have all helped in working on gender imbalance through activities have impacted effectively on many social policies and laws. For instance they succeeded in getting the government to enact the Interstate Succession Law 1985, to regulate the system of inheritance in the invent that a person dies interstate. Others include the Criminal Code (Amendment) Act 1994, which declares female circumcision as a criminal offense, the Criminal Code (Amendment) Act 1998 which put an end to the practice of 'Trokosi' and other cultural and customary practices which encourage servitude.

Considering the commitment these organizations have put into the task of fighting gender imbalance in the country, there is no doubt that the new empowerment that has come with this new lease of life is a step in the right direction.