Women treated like 'secondhand goods' – Gender advocate

Gender and Health Development Advocate, Chief Bagzaa Naa Alhassan Issahaku Amadu, has bemoaned the treatment of women as second-class citizens.

“Invariably, the nature of socialisation puts women at a disadvantage to the fact that they are treated like secondhand goods…,” Chief Amadu said at a day’s capacity building workshop organised by the Africa Centre for Human Rights and Economic Empowerment for Women in Ghana in Tamale on Tuesday, 26 March 2019.

He was concerned that culture and religion seem to undermine the economic rights of women leading to inequalities between men and women.

“We realised that some cultural issues and religious bottlenecks tend to frustrate whatever intentions or certain programmes that champion the cause of women,” he noted.

The situation is not any better in the Northern Region where leaders and opinion leaders frustrate processes when culprits are to be prosecuted in relation to violence against women.

Chief Amadu further noted that premium should be placed on education of girls and condemned the practice of girl-child marriage which truncates education of females.

The gender advocate stated that though the Northern Region has the highest prevalence of illiteracy at a rate of 62.8 percent, more girls are illiterates than the regional figures.

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of the Africa Centre for Human Rights and Sustainable Development, Bernice Naah, in a separate interview with Class FM said the workshop seeks to empower journalists and community leaders to champion rights of women in the area.

She indicated the workshop is aimed at empowering to be economically viable, responsible and supportive to their families.