Ministries, media to roll out campaign against child and women abuse

Accra, Aug 19, GNA - The Ministries of Information and Women and Children's Affairs in collaboration with Clinical Psychologists and the media are to roll out a behavioural change campaign to reverse the prevalence of abusive acts against women and children in the country.

To this end, sector Ministers of both Ministries on Thursday met with a group of psychologists and chief executives of electronic media outlets in the country to deliberate on how best to come out with a campaign to end such escalating domestic violence.

Both Ministries are also seeking the support of the media to ensure the success of the campaign.

Mr. John Tia Akologu, Minister of Information, said the recent issues of "escalating domestic violence" could not be rationalized on grounds of economics or criminality adding, they rather had to do with the mindset of the perpetrators.

Mr. Akologu however said media coverage regarding how to stem such occurrences had been low, a situation which had led to increase in such cases.

He said government was concerned about the situation, the reason it was partnering with psychologists and the media to embark on educative programmes to help stem the trend.

He said both Ministries would also meet with religious bodies and other stakeholders over the issue to enhance education.

Mrs. Juliana Azumah-Mensah, Minister for Women and Children's Affairs, said the increasing cases of domestic violence was a great concern to her ministry.

According to her, though laws were passed against domestic violence, the practice was still on the increase in the country, attributing the cause to low-level of education and knowledge of the law.

She said it was unreasonable to commit such level of domestic violence adding, government alone could not work to win the war against such acts hence the partnership.

Nii Nortey Duah, a Clinical Psychologist with the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Ghana, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, expressed appreciation to both ministries for recognizing the role of psychologists to curb the menace and pledged their preparedness to deal with the issue.

He called for a proper arrangement to ensure that progress on the campaign to be developed, could be measured to inform ways to further strategise to curb the incidence.

Mr. Santokh Singh, Chief Operating Officer of TV3 Network, pledged the commitment of the electronic media to partner with government to arrest the situation.