Show more commitment to land right issues – Awisahene
Senye Wuo II, Adumadum Awisahene of Akyem Awisa, has asked government to show more commitment to land right issues to enable rural women farmers to have access, own and control land.
She said this was important as the impact of women related issues had not been felt as it should in the country thereby worsening their plight as far as land acquisition was concerned.
Nana Senyo Wuo said this at a meeting organised by Women in Law and Development Ghana (WiLDAF- Ghana) to enable stakeholders to analyse and localise the 15 Charter of demands outlined in the Kilimanjaro Initiative adopted by 30 rural women in the Republic of Tanzania to make it operational in Ghana.
The event forms part of initiatives to mark the 2017 International Women’s Day.
The Kilimanjaro Initiative is a rural mobilisation from across Africa at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro in October 2016 which was aimed at creating space for rural women to be able to participate in decision making processes about issues dear to them.
This is to strengthen the agency and movement of rural women in claiming and defending their land and natural resource rights in Africa.
Nana Senyo Wuo said land rights were critical to rural women because it was their only source of livelihood hence the need for strong interventions to ensure that the woes of the women were addressed.
She said in Ghana most rural women engaged in farming but they did not have control over such lands because they either got access to it through their husbands or by family ownership.
Nana Wuo said even though government and other institutions had fought for some policies such as the joint land ownership policy most of the women did not have the knowledge to pursue further when such unlawful acts were meted out to them.
She, therefore, called for more education and engagement with rural women to enable them to understand issues relating to lands.
She urged other traditional leaders to also educate their people on land rights during their festive occasions and town meetings to end the menace of taking land from women when they lost their spouses and relatives.
Source: GNA