NGO calls on govt to finance the Domestic Violence Support Fund

Founder and Executive Director of Gender Centre for Empowering Development (GenCED) in Ghana, Esther Tawiah, has appealed to the Government of Ghana and the health bodies to support women in the fight against Gender-based violence.

In an interview with Kwame Afrifa Mensah on the ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ show, she disclosed that while the Domestic Act Support Fund has been set up, the fund has not been allocated with any money to support victims of abuse.

According to her, the Gender Centre for Empowering Development has constantly asked for the Government’s support but their efforts have proven futile.

“The issue is that victims of sexual abuse may not have the money to follow the case up, so the Government realized that it needs to set aside a fund that will help victims of sexual or domestic abuse. So the domestic violence act positioned that Government must set up the fund. But before the Government can set up the fund, the Government set up a committee but the fund is not yet in.

In 2018, we spoke about it but we realized that this particular fund has still not been set up by the Government. We have spoken about it for long. It was last year that the Government informed us that he will allocate a part of the budget for the fund. As at now, there is nothing given to the fund. It has been a year now. They have promised us but we have not accessed any money. They are saying the committee is still deliberating on it”.

She appealed to Government to allocate part of the COVID-19 funds to help victims of domestic violence. “We are appealing to Government to use a part of the COVID support it has received to allocate to the fund”.

Speaking on the lack of support for rape victims, she acknowledged that the Government was not solely to blame. She bemoaned the unethical attitude of doctors toward victims as she claimed that these doctors cash in on victims before they offer help to these victims.

She thus requested that health bodies and the National Health Insurance Scheme to review its policies and include domestic and rape cases as part of the health issues that the scheme covers. “This is so that any doctor who refuses to provide a medical report will be dealt with by the law”, she added.

The Gender Centre for Empowering Development (GenCED) a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), in 2018, called for the immediate establishment of a Domestic Violence Support Fund to assist victims of gender violence to recuperate.

The NGO noted that although Ghana made important strides fighting gender-based violence (GBV), a lot more remained to be done to ensure victims’ support issues were addressed.