By Philip Tengzu
Bussie, (UW/R), GNA – The Africa Centre for Human Rights and Sustainable Development (AfCHuRSD-Ghana) has initiated steps to address domestic violence in the Bussie community in the Daffiama-Bussie-Issa (DBI) District towards promoting peaceful co-existence among families.
The NGO would also facilitate the enactment of community bylaws on child protection to save the children in that community from pervasive abuse such as child/early and forced marriages and teenage pregnancy and implement livelihood empowerment interventions for the people.
The initiative, which formed part of the implementation of the Girls and Women Economic Empowerment, Livelihoods and Participation in Leadership (GWEEL) project, was to strengthen family cohesion necessary for enhancing child protection and development.
Speaking at a community durbar on domestic violence in Bussie at the weekend, Madam Lydia Nimberewe of AfCHuRSD-Ghana, indicated that the NGO was committed to addressing issues of domestic violence, which were perverse in communities in the Upper West Region.
She said through its sensitisation and livelihood empowerment interventions for communities, especially women and other vulnerable groups, AfCHuRSD-Ghana was building the community’s resilience against domestic violence.
She explained that the GWEEL project, which targeted to directly impact the lives of vulnerable women, including widows, girls and Persons with Disability (PWDs), would greatly contribute to the community’s development through its trickle-down effect.
Mr Prosper Kpankyaano, the DBI District Director of Social Welfare and Community Development, encouraged the community members to exhibit commitment and own the intervention to enable them to reap its benefits.
He said the bylaws would include the formation of a child protection committee at the community, as well as ban record dances at night as they served as breeding grounds for children to engage in acts that could harm their lives.
Mr Guggisberg Tang, the DBI District Director of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), encouraged the people to eschew domestic violence including Sexual and Gender-based Violence.
He explained that domestic violence could cause physical and permanent disability of survivors, who were mostly women, children and house help, affecting their health and economic wellbeing.
He encouraged survivors or witnesses of domestic violence to report to the appropriate authorities for the necessary actions to be taken.
“These abuses are against their human rights and dignity, and therefore, women should not keep quiet and allow their rights to be trampled upon in the name of marriage or in ordinary relationship”, Mr Tang stated.
Mr Osuman Jalilu, the DBI District Director of Legal Aid, also took the people through the services of Legal Aid and how they could access those services when needed.
He also encouraged the community members not to shield issues of domestic violence when they occurred but should speak out and seek justice for the survivors.
The chief and people of the community expressed hope that the project would have the expected impact on their lives, reduce vulnerabilities of women, widows and the less privileged, and ensure the holistic development of children.
GNA
Edited by Caesar Abagali /Kenneth Odeng Adade