Violence against women and girls is crime against humanity – MCE

Sunyani, Dec. 20, - Mrs. Evelyn Kumi-Richardson, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Sunyani has said violence against women and girls is a crime against humanity.

    

Mrs. Kumi-Richardson, who was addressing a gathering of women and girls at the end of a walk through the principal streets of Sunyani to climax the commemoration of this year’s 16 Days of activism against gender-based violence, said women must therefore not perpetuate violence against their fellow women.

    

The programme, organised by Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection on a global theme “Leave No One Behind: End Violence Against Women and Girls” was participated by women and girls from the Moslem community, market women, female representatives of civil society and non-governmental organisations.

    

The rest included female personnel from the security services and other groups like the Christian Mothers Association and Catholic Women Association. 

    

They held placards with inscriptions like “Tugging Women as Witches is a Violation of their Rights”, “Respect the Right of Women and Girls”, “Defilement, 25 Years in Prison”, “Gender-based Violence Manifest Itself Physically, Sexually and psychologically” and “Female Genital Mutilation Causes Many Health Risks as well as Physical and Emotional Pains.” 

    

Mrs. Kumi-Richardson said violence against women and girls usurped their fundamental human rights, saying that consequently it puts them under immense psychological torture and thus placed such affected females off the path to realising their fullest potentials in life.

    

Mrs. Kumi-Richardson said the statistics on men perpetrating violence against women was alarming worldwide, with Africa taking the centre stage in this 21st Century and therefore lauded the theme for the celebration as “very appropriate and relevant.”

  

She said statistics by the national records of the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service from January to March 2017, indicated that 79 men were arrested for perpetrating violence against women, while 187 females defiled as against 11 males within the period.

   

Mrs. Kumi-Richardson explained that “Leaving no one behind means prioritising and putting people at the centre of development and placing progress of most marginalised groups and communities first, with women and girls being at the top of the list.”

GNA