Students Need Protection From Sexual Abuse

A legal practitioner, Mrs Hillary Gbedemah, has advocated the institutionalisation of policies on sexual behaviour in schools to protect the rights of girls and the youth.

She said it was necessary for students to keep abreast of laws that protected against sexual misconduct, in order not to compromise their morals and also help them engage in the right processes of mediation.

“The youth should claim their rights and you can only do that if you are knowledgeable and assert your rights,” she said.
She was speaking at the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS) ‘Mmaa Nkomo’ on “Promoting women’s rights and gender equality” in Accra.

The IPS ‘Mmaa Nkommo’ is an initiative of the Abantu for Development, a gender advocacy organisation, to create a platform to mentor female students and encourage them to participate in governance and decision-making.

The programme was sponsored by Abantu for development in collaboration with ActionAid Ghana.
Touching on the topic: “Promoting Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Using the Existing Structures”, Mrs Gbedemah said society must actively promote measures to ensure the education of girls and increase literacy among women, especially in the rural areas, to enable them to assert their rights.

“Ensure the active promotion of all human rights for women and girls, including the right to development by raising awareness or enacting legislation where necessary,” she added.

She said parents needed to desist from coercing their children into submission, since it culminated in making them timid and compromised on issues even when they had to protest to harassment against them.

Mrs Gbedemah, who is also the Rector of the Law Institute, said international and national laws stipulated that all human beings were born free and equal and needed to have the same rights and freedoms irrespective of race, colour and sex.
She said women had equal rights as men and it was therefore disheartening to see women living under exploitation, discrimination or violence on the basis of education, employment, health or access to education.

The Senior Programme Officer of Abantu for Development, Mrs Hamida Harrison, who spoke on “increasing women’s representation in decision-making: the role of affirmative action policy,” said women’s inequality found expression in areas of politics, leadership, economics and social development.

She said that was due to inadequate representation and participation of African women in decision-making, and encouraged more young women to pursue higher education, get into the governance process and become a mouthpiece for other underprivileged women.

The IPS Women’s Commissioner, Ms Emma Asante, said the programme had been very educative and very encouraging to the students.