By Philip Tengzu
Tendoma, (UW/R), July 24, GNA – The scarcity of clean and safe drinking water in Tendoma community in the Wa West District, is resulting in Gender-based Violence (GBV) and termination of marriages.
This is because women in the community spends several hours in search of water for their families, which affect their abilities to support their husbands in performing some tasks including farm work.
Madam Cynthia Prokabo, a resident of the community, who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), added that the situation was adversely affecting women and girls in the community.
She explained that there were three boreholes in the community but none of them was yielding enough water to meet their demand due to the large population of the community and its attendant high demand for water.
“You can queue at the borehole and by the time you get the water, it will be late. By then too your husband is on the farm and you need to prepare food for him. So, when you get to the farm late it generates misunderstandings, and the woman is sometimes beaten.
“The man always thinks you the woman don’t want to work or don’t want to prepare the food for him on time. He will not think of how difficult it is to get water to cook.
“We the women are the ones suffering it because when the man wakes up, he goes to the farm, whatever you will do to get water or food for him on the farm, he does not care,” Madam Prokabo lamented.
Madam Batooro Kuusopuo, another resident, said the difficulty in accessing water in the community was negatively affecting women’s economic activities since they spend valuable hours queuing at the borehole for water.
The residents, therefore, made a passionate appeal to the Government through the Wa West District Assembly, benevolent individuals, and Non-governmental Organisations to come to their aid by providing them with additional sources of potable water.
Mr Kakraba Yuodo, another resident, told the GNA that the community currently depended on a well to supplement the three boreholes but raised concerns about a possible outbreak of waterborne diseases in the community.
He indicated that people from neighbouring communities including the Weleteon community sometimes depended on the borehole in Tendoma when the sole borehole in that community breaks down.
“Usually, the women fetch from the well for us to bath and the small water that they get from the borehole is what we drink and cook with.
“We are suffering seriously here. If we get the water and have to pay for it, we will be happy,” Mr Yuodo explained.
However, Mr Benedict Ziem, the Assembly Member for the Poyentanga Electoral Area, told the GNA that he was aware of the water situation in the community.
He said he was lobbying with organisations and the district assembly to get the community an additional borehole.
Meanwhile, the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) six enjoins member states that were signatories to the Goals including Ghana to: “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” by 2030.
Target 6.1 of that Goal requires that: “By 2030, member states achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.”
It was, therefore, necessary for the government of Ghana and its development partners, Non-governmental Organisations and concerned individuals to ensure that every person had access to clean, safe, and affordable water irrespective of one’s geographical location if that target would be achieved by 2030.
GNA