The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has rolled out activities to strengthen the policy environment for gender equality, promote and protect the welfare of children, women, the aged and persons living with disability (PWDs).
In that regard, the ministry has enrolled 344,389 households translating into over 1.5 million who are receiving grants from the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme (LEAP).
Also, the Ghana School Feeding Programme feeds 3,448,065 pupils in 10,832 public basic schools with one hot nutritious meal for every school-going day.
The Caretaker Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Madam Cecilia Abena Dapaah, said this at the ministry’s 2022 annual summit in Accra on Tuesday.
Madam Dapaah said the ministry has also increased and deepened awareness on the need to promote and protect the rights of the child and has sensitized 3,434,532 people, including children and adults on various child protection issues using the Child Protection toolkit, reaching 334,379 people through social media platforms.
“We continue in close partnership with the Office of the Head of Local Government Service (OHLGS) and other partners to expand the reach of the Integrated Social Service Delivery initiative. The number of MMDAs has increased from 100 in 2021 to 160 in 2022. This implies further that 60 new MMDAs have been enrolled on the Social Welfare Information Management System (SWIMS) which is aimed at promoting responsive, accessible, coordinated and timely delivery of social welfare services to the citizenry. This integrated system is helping to promote the best-case management practices concerning the provision of quality social welfare services,” she noted.
According to her, the Domestic Violence Fund has been operationalised with GH¢1,500,000.00 in 2022 as part of the implementation of the Domestic Violence 2007 (Act 732).
“Eight Domestic Violence Response Centres, six in Accra, one in Bono East and another in Western Region have been established to help facilitate services to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence,’’ she added.
She said the ministry has trained 60 paralegals to respond to sexual and gender-based violence issues, adding that “over eight hundred victims of Domestic and Gender-based violence have been supported.”
On Persons Living with Disabilities (PWDs), Madam Dapaah emphasised that the ministry has undertaken a progressive compilation of disaggregated data on 12,667 children with disabilities, 103 graduates with disabilities from Tertiary Institutions, and 30 graduates with disabilities from Tertiary Institutions having employable skills in the extractive sector.
On her part, the chairperson for the parliamentary select committee on gender and children, Ms Francisca Oteng, said Ghana has made significant investments in key social protection and child protection programmes and that had led to the improvements in the lives of children and their families.
She stated that the prevailing economic conditions experienced worldwide make it very expedient to discuss and find workable ways in which women and children can be cushioned.
Priscilla Nimako, ISD
