NEWS IN GHANA

Joseph Kobla Wemakor The gargantuan rise in violence being perpetrated against our women and girls in Ghana today coupled with the inability of victims to get justice and support are indeed a great cause of worry, giving a strong caveat that something radical ought to be done urgently else Ghana is likely to miss out on achieving the SDGs targets. The Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Under its goal 5 is a clear target set up by the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) to be achieved by all the 193 UN member states which mainly focused on eliminating violence against women while goal 16 has a target to promote the rule of law and equal access to justice. The issue of human rights abuse in Ghana in its current stage has reached a crescendo with violence being perpetrated against women and girls at an alarming

Her dream of becoming a professional nurse in the near future who could lend her support to doctors in a bid to provide adequate healthcare services to patients in the hospital became shattered from the very first day her parents decided to give her hand forcefully in marriage at a tender age of 12 due to poverty. Twice she had resisted the awful attempt by parents to be married off forcefully to a man older than his father’s age in order to attain her personal freedom and pursue her future dream. But for the third time, escape was her only way out of oppression. Her story could be likened to that of a popular quote: “jump from frying pan to fire”, no doubt! Ubaida,12, Kayayei (head porter) in the streets of Accra recounts the harrowing accounts of how she escapes from the grips of her parents in the north only to be raped down south amidst myriad of challenges she had to battle with in her everyday work as a head porter in the Accra. It was the most difficult decis