For some time now I’ve been wanting to put a post up that
explains a little more about what I am actually doing here in Ghana work-wise.
(Its not all insects and travelling!)
I am here working with Mrs. Bernice Sam, National
Co-Ordinator of Women in Law and Development Africa. Bernice is engaged in
various activities aimed at empowering women in Ghana by attempting to push for
strategic changes to the system (both political and legal) as it stands now. The
main focus of the organization is to combat the various forms of violence
against women – and there are several ways that folks have come up with to be
violent towards women here in Ghana.
One of the things that WiLDAF is trying to do is increase
the awareness in the general population of what violence can look like, that
its illegal, and that there are remedies for people who are experiencing it.
WiLDAF has worked so hard to get changes made to the laws, but those changes
are useless if people are just going to continue going about their business as
if the law didn’t exist.
Because many in Ghana are illiterate and because radio is so
popular here, WiLDAF does a lot of radio campaigns to educate the general
public about violence issues. They also put out simplified versions of the
statutes for people to understand what the law says without having to consult
someone like me…
One of my favourite initiatives is this simplified version
of the new Domestic Violence Act. It is done in the form of a comic book which,
while a little awkward at times (many times), has got to be more user friendly
than the statute itself…
I am at WiLDAF as a legal analyst and researcher and I am
focussing mainly on forms of economic violence against women for the first part
of my time here. There are a lot of different ways this type of violence
manifests itself here (you’re probably familiar with the subject of “land
grabbing” but if you’re not, International Justice Mission has an excellent
explanation of it here: http://www.ijm.org/sites/default/files/resources/Factsheet-Illegal-Property-Seizure.pdf ) but my little comic book has a strip about
another form of it that I thought was well portrayed here:
(I love the police man... if only it really did work like that!)
(Honourable mention goes to the female judge in the robe and wig)
A woman’s security is particularly precarious in Ghana when she’s
joined to someone in marriage. As with most places, if a woman follows the traditional
path of caring for the home and children while her husband grows his
career/business, the woman may find herself literally destitute if her husband
decides to boot her tomorrow and she has no skills, no property in her name, no
money and no support. In Canada we have laws to prevent this kind of injustice – marriage/separation/divorce laws. Those laws can be twisted in many ridiculous ways to become tools
for vindictive people to exact revenge on each other, but originally, they
were intended to protect (mostly women) from economic abuse which tends to
become rampant at the dissolution of a marriage. Ghana ALSO has laws to protect
women and children if a marriage is dissolved. But those laws are of no use if
they are not followed, not enforced, and not even known about.
In Ghana, the various clan families (Ga, Ashante, etc.)
sometimes set their own “by-laws” with regard to marriage as well as divorce. Some
of the clan families are matriachal, some patriarchal, which creates its own
interesting dynamics. One of the things I will be doing here in Ghana is intervieweing
various chiefs and queen mothers to find out how the laws are or are not being
followed in their respective clan families when a family in their clan is going
through a dissolution of a marriage.
For instance, today I reviewed the written by-laws of one of
the particular family clans here in Ghana – I won’t mention the name of the
clan... This by-law was last updated by the chiefs and elders in January
of 2011. For a “Literate Maiden” who has never been married, several important
payments must be made in order to marry her including: a “knocking fee” of ¢20.00 (about $12
Canadian), a Tsi Sika (dowry) of ¢100.00 ($55) and one bottle of imported
Schnapps one crate of minerals and twelve bottles of malt. A “seduction” fee is
also payable “where applicable” for ¢100.00 (no idea what that implies!) A suitcase,
shoes, cloth and other pieces of clothing are also required as well as the
provision of a Bible and a ring.
The payments for a “Literate Maiden” who has been married
once and has given birth are much the same, but the dowry is only ¢60.00 instead
of ¢100.00 (same amount of beverages) and the seduction fee is only ¢50 instead
of ¢100, “where applicable”.
The payments for an “Illiterate Maiden” who had has never
been married are similar, but the dowry is only ¢40.00 (a bargain!) and the seduction
is ¢50.00 where applicable. The cost for
an “Illiterate Maiden” who has been married before is the same, but the
seduction fee is only ¢40.00.
Now, if a man from a different clan wants to marry a woman
from this clan, the dowry and seduction fees spike up to ¢200.00 each (about
$120.00) for a literate maiden and ¢100.00 each for an illiterate maiden –
whehter married before or not.
The by-law also deals with penalties within the clan:
impregnating a matured school girl in primary school, junior high or senior
highschool is gonna cost a penalty of ¢250.00 for a citizen and ¢500.00 for a
non-citizen. If that girl is in a higher level of education than senior
highschool, the penalty is ¢100.00 for a citizen and ¢150.00 for a non-citizen.
Impregnating a hairdresser, dresssmaker “or the like”, without a “Basic
Education Certificate” is gonna cost you ¢50.00 (though they do point out that
having sex with a girl below eighteen years is also a criminal offence and will
be dealt with by the state of Ghana).
If adultery is committed, the man in the wrong must pay ¢100.00, one live sheep, two bottles of castle bridge and 1 bottle of schnappes
to the offended husband. The offending wife must pay ¢60.00, two fowls, one
bottle of imported schnapps and 12 eggs to her offended husband. Note that
there is no provision for compensation to a wife if her husband commits
adultery…that is partly because polygamy is so prevalent here.
Here is the short section on divorce:
“Any person, male or female who divorces the spouse without
satisfactory evidence or reason, shall pay a send off fee (NSUMII SIKA) of TWO
HUNDRED Ghana Cedis (GH ¢200.00) in the case of a citizen. A non citizen shall
pay GH ¢500.00 to his divorced wife. The man must take proper care of the
children they have. The man should give part of any property which they both
acquired during the period of their marriage to the woman.
If a marriage is dissolved at the request of one or both
partners before an arbitrarion (Nkrobo) or customary head, an amoun tof GH ¢1.00
shall be paid by the woman to the man. The man in turn gives out the GH ¢1.00 to
the woman to signify that the children they have belongs to the man”.
So one can see why the Domestic Violence Act was
needed, and why a comic strip or radio form of it may be necessary to let a woman who
finds herself in a desperate situation know
that a sendoff fee of about $100.00 is not her only option if she is faced with
a divorce. She has legal rights which supercede the traditional by-laws, if she
chooses to go that route. Many do not, obviously. Going the legal route has its
own set of challenges that can, sometimes, make a quick payment of a
no-questions-asked hundred bucks look pretty lucrative after all.
That’s what
WiLDAF and a lot of other concerned groups are trying to change.
No comments:
Post a Comment