Centre calls for women empowerment

A capacity development Human Rights training workshop for Journalists has ended with a call on government, public and other human rights groups to empower women economically.

Mr Robert Akoto Amoafo, Executive Director, Human Right Advocacy Centre (HRAC), said empowering women economically was the right foundation that would empower them and their families for development goals and help reduce abuses.

“More women need to be empowered economically to enable them to empower themselves, their families and society in general as is the right of every individual to have access to economic freedom without any constraints

“And by doing so it will position women at the fore front to be involved in the decision making process of the country extensively,” he said.

Mr Akoto Amoafa made the remarks at the end of a two-day human rights training workshop for journalists in Dodowa, organised by the HRAC with funding from Star-Ghana.

Explaining the rationale behind the engagement with journalists, the Executive Director of HRAC said the workshop, which was the first and formal engagement with journalists, aimed at educating and sensitising them on how best to propagate and report on human rights issues in Ghana.

“It also aims at helping journalists to know how best to package and disseminate information on ways of implementing and formulating policies for human rights issues in Ghana,” he said.

The Executive Director observed that human rights needed to be at the centre of all policy formulation and called for a concerted effort amongst all stakeholders to efficiently help promote individual human rights in the country as an essential commodity for a country’s development.

He asked journalists to holistically accord human rights stories with the needed attention that would help promote people’s rights in the country.

Mr Charles Yao Mawusi, Media and Communication Advisor, noted that the training workshop would be a periodic initiative to broaden the knowledge, scope and ideas of journalists on human rights in the country.

He said for human rights to be an in-depth subject for the understanding of journalists and the public they informed, there was the need for an advocacy aimed at improving mechanism for addressing the issue.

He stressed that when much importance was accorded to human rights, journalists would know how best to project their stories, using the right words and techniques among others.

Mr Mawusi lauded HRAC for the initiative, saying it was a refresher programme that would help journalists to understand the basic concepts and the knowledge of the subject matter in order to get basic answers for the country’s development.

The two-day workshop brought together journalists and other stakeholders all over the country to discuss, share and adopt new approaches of improving journalists' writing skills on human rights reportage.

The participants called for collaborative and pragmatic measures amongst HRAC, government, institutions and all stakeholders’ to help curb any injustices imposed on people