By Dennis Peprah, GNA
Odomase, (Bono), March 11, GNA – Mrs Joycelyn Adii, the Bono Regional Director of the Department of Gender has advised female employees to be bold and report cases of sexual abuses and harassment meted against them at work places.
She said it was unacceptable for male employees to make unhealthy sexual advances and abuses towards female employees at workplaces.
Mrs Adii those sexual harassment and exploitations among key challenges inimical to the holistic growth and development of girls and women.
Additionally, she noted that gender-based violence, manifested in wife beatings, rape and defilement were still common, especially in many of the local communities which required urgent attention.
Mrs Adii made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the sidelines of a day’s forum to mark the Bono Regional celebration of the 2026 International Women’s Day (IWD) at Odomase, the Sunyani West Municipal Capital.
The Bono Regional Office of the Department of Gender in collaboration with the Young Urban Women Movement (YUWM), a civil society organisation, with support from ActionAid Ghana (AAG), a Non-Governmental Organisation organised the forum, attended by schoolgirls and queen-mothers.
Celebrated annually, the IWD which falls on March 8, was instituted by the United Nations (UN) to recognize the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, advocating measures to tackle barriers impeding women development.
The 2026 celebration of the IWD is on the theme: “Give to Gain: Investing in safety, dignity and justice for women and girls”.
Mrs Adii said wife beatings and rape remained were worst forms of human rights abuse, undignified womanhood and impeded the proper growth and development of women.
She urged traditional authorities and civil society organisations and actors to frontline efforts to tackle and bring the situation under control and to preserve the fundamental human rights and dignity of innocent women and girls.
In a speech read on his behalf, Mr Kwame Afram Denkyira, the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regional Programmes Manager of the AAG advocated faster progress toward gender equality.
He said in Ghana, the daily reality for many women and girls was defined by a landscape of systemic neglect and deep-rooted gender inequality from the lack of resources in local clinics to the absence of safe spaces where girls and young women could seek essential health services.
Mr Denkyira said the theme for the 2026 IWD aligned with the “AAG CSP VII Strategic Priority 2 on promoting Women’s Rights and Decent Work focusing on Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights for women and girls”.
Earlier, the school children undertook street procession at Odomase, advocating improved, equitable, accessible, and youth-friendly healthcare for all adolescents as well as ending gender-based violence against women and girls.
GNA
Kenneth Odeng Adade