Women urged to be abreast with provisions on rights

Ho, Jan. 7, GNA- Mrs Esther Nyamalor, Executive Director of Youth AID Ghana has urged women to obtain copies of the 1992 Constitution study the relevant portions on human rights and propagate them the way they read, study, discuss and preach the Bible.

"That way they would become confident and be able to defend themselves and their children whenever their rights were trampled upon."

Mrs. Nyamalor made the point at a workshop in Ho on the promotion of the rights of women and children organized by Youth Aid Ghana with support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).

She said the tendency on the part of women, especially to "give everything to God" whenever they and their children were abused gave those abusers the impunity to persist in meting out such abuses. Mrs. Nyamalor said human rights were vested in human beings by God by virtue of being human beings and therefore it was incumbent on all to fight for, uphold, enjoy and protect it.

She said the extent to which a country's economy and democracy could become sound and developed depended on the knowledge of those rights by the citizenry and eagerness to assist in enforcing them.

Mrs Nyamalor advised women to ensure that they contracted marriages under the ordinance to ensure that their rights and those of their children were respected and protected in the matrimonial home. She said women who only co-habit with men without being properly married were putting their future in jeopardy.

Mr David Ametepe, a Legal Practitioner said matrimonial rights were all about property rights for which reason women should ensure that their marriages were properly contracted under the law. He cautioned that weddings conducted in churches not legally registered, to do so, and by Pastors not licensed by law to preside over such ceremonies were not recognized by law.

Mr Ametepe said human rights were about equality, liberty and dignity, which should not be compromised under any circumstances. He said unfortunately most women themselves insist on being taken through dehumanizing widowhood rites as a condition for enjoying their right to the property of their deceased husbands.

Mr Richard Dzomeku, Principal Assistant Investigator of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAG), Ho ,urged women to ensure that they went into marriages that ensured them security, dignity and tolerance. 07. Jan. 07.