Women advised to legitimise their marriages

Mampong (Ashanti Region) - Miss Edna Kumah, Executive Director of the African Women Lawyers Association (AWLA) has said that merely raising children with a man and residing with him was not enough to qualify a woman as a legitimate wife.

Addressing a day's workshop under the theme, "Mass gender advocacy" at Asante-Mampong, Miss Kumah admonished women who fell within this category to ensure that their marriages were legally contracted to enable them to become heirs of their husbands.

The workshop sought to share information and lobby for gender equality through legislative reforms, public education and advocacy. It was organised by AWLA and sponsored by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) for a cross section of women in the Sekyere West District.

The participants were taken through topics like interstate succession, child maintenance and domestic violence. Miss Kumah implored women to shed their low self-esteem to enable them to compete favourably with their male counterparts in all spheres of life and encouraged them to be abreast with their fundamental human rights, defend and protect them at all times.

Mrs. Lisa Quarshie, a member of AWLA, advised women to report all cases of domestic violence against them to the police to serve as deterrent to their male counterparts and urged parents to ensure that all cases of rape and defilement were not settled out of court.