The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs Cynthia Mamle Morrison, has disclosed that all witches’ camps in the country would be transformed into safe havens for all women who are tagged as witches to protect them from the atrocities they go through at these camps.
She said women branded as witches by their relatives have no place to go since the members of the family refused to accept them in their homes and that makes the witches’ camps their new homes.
She said at the witches’ camps, the women go through harassment, beatings and psychological trauma on a daily basis and some even die in the process.
Mrs Morrison, who disclosed this to journalists following the lynching of a 90-year-old woman, Akua Dente in the Gonja East District in the Savannah Region, hinted that her Ministry would renovate some of its Social Care Homes across the country to serve as safe havens for any woman accused of witchcraft and other women who are facing violence and discrimination in Ghanaian society.
“Together we are going to make sure that women are liberated not only women who have been branded as witches but also women who are been molested by their spouses and other family members”, she said.
She added that the 90-year old woman lynching has set the stage for the liberation of all women who are facing various forms of discrimination in Ghana.
She said meetings would be scheduled with the chiefs and elders of all the communities where witches’ camps were sited to come out with the modalities or the road maps to close these camps.
In a remark, a Deputy Minister for Information, Mrs Dokua Asiamah-Adjei, said discrimination and violence against women such as the lynching of Akua Dente could affect the image of Ghana globally, adding that this can negatively affect the tourism industry in the country and the flow of foreign direct investment.
Mrs Asiamah-Adjei said community education was key in increasing awareness of the negative consequences of violence against.
She charged Civil Society Organisations in the country to increase efforts to eliminate all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child and women in Ghana
Ishmael Batoma, ISD
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