End pharmacist strike, HIV women appeal

Some Women Living with HIV in the Brong-Ahafo Region have appealed to the Ghana Pharmaceutical Association to end their strike action to enable them have access to Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) drugs.

They said the strike by the pharmacists was a threat to their lives as they supplied the ARTs, which they needed for their survival.

The women made the appeal at a capacity building and sensitization workshop for Women Living with HIV and AIDS and their service providers at Abesim near Sunyani.

The International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA Ghana) with support from United Nations organised the workshop as part of its, “Increasing Access to Property and Inheritance Right of Women Living with HIV and AIDS in Ghana” project.

Main objective of the workshop was to address the structural inequalities that create difficulties for HIV positive women to access their property and inheritance rights after the death of their husbands.

The participants appealed to the government and the Fair Wages and Salary Commission to negotiate with the striking pharmacists and seek solutions to their concerns.

They also called for a radical approach in addressing stigma related issues to enable them to open up and join the national campaigns including the stigma reduction campaign.

Speaking on the topic “Property Rights of Women in Relation to Succession”, the Executive Director of FIDA Ghana, Mrs Jane Quaye, said many women and their children were being deprived of their properties after the death of their husbands.

She said many women were being made to undergo widowhood rites and ritual servitudes saying this was unacceptable and needed to be immediately halted.

The Executive Director also called on the legislature, to amend a section of the Children’s Act, 1998 (ACT 560) which stated that “property of a deceased husband that is less than ten million old Ghana cedis must go to the spouse and children” saying the amount was very small.