By Solomon Gumah
Tamale, Sept 27, GNA – A three-day training workshop has begun for selected representatives of institutions involved in providing essential services for survivors of domestic violence especially women and girls.
It is to contribute towards reducing Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in the country and organised by the Domestic Violence Secretariat of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) with funding support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
About 60 key officers from the Ghana Health Service, the law enforcement agencies, Department of Gender, the Judiciary, Department of Social Welfare from the Northern, North East, Savannah and Upper East Regions are the participants.
Madam Malonin Asibi, Head of the Domestic Violence Secretariat of MoGCSP, speaking during the training in Tamale, said participants were being taken through structured modules designed to enhance their capacity for efficiency.
She explained that the modules were initially introduced by the United Nations for member States and were launched in Ghana in 2019 and followed by the national training in 2021.
She added that the training in Tamale was a step-down training to the regions and subsequently to the various districts.
She said the training was also to ensure that service providers did not only focus on getting perpetrators persecuted but also to recognise the physical and emotional well-being of survivors and their families.
Madam Asibi said “We expect that after this training, service providers should be able to prioritise and adopt a well-coordinated approach to tackling SGBV cases by putting themselves into teams to identify and address such issues.”
She called on various stakeholders including traditional and religious leaders to support the initiative to ensure that issues of SGBV were holistically tackled in the communities.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Retired, Dr Christian Boamah Mensah, who facilitated the training on health, identified financial constraints on the part of survivors in seeking justice as a critical threat to fighting SGBV in the country.
He called for funding to ensure that survivors were given the needed support to thrive and fulfill their potential.
Participants were introduced to the packaging of essential services for women and girls experiencing violence, issues of gender socialisation, and SGBV in the regions amongst others.
GNA