Violence against Women in Ghana. Interventions by NGOs

Scientific Study from the year 2019 in the subject Sociology - Relationships and Family, , language: English, abstract: This qualitative research assessed the effectiveness of the strategies adopted by four key NGOs in addressing Violence Against Women (VAW) within the Ghanaian context. VAW is a worldwide pandemic that permeates across all geographical boundaries and impacts all people and societies regardless of culture, class, ethnicity, age, race, socio-economic status, political leaning, or religion. It is a daily phenomenon faced by humanity from the household level to national levels. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have devised several means of curbing VAW but the menace still persist. The study targeted a total of fifty two respondents comprising; eight personnel from the four selected NGOs; twelve state actors; fourteen non-state actors and eighteen direct beneficiaries through the usage of in-depth (informal) and key informant interviews, semi-structured questionnaires, direct field observations as well as desk top review of official documents. The study found out that, all four NGOs utilised among others, five key strategies in tackling the menace of VAW in Ghana and these are awareness creation, lobbying and advocacy, community mobilisation, activism and networking, training/capacity building and service provision. The study results further indicated that, notwithstanding the efficacy of the strategies deployed by the NGOs, there were some challenges that confronted the NGOs in their fight against VAW. Notable among them were the lack of willingness on the part of victims of VAW to report and further pursue perpetrators of VAW, financial constraints facing the NGOs as well as state actors and lack of well-coordinated approach on the part of all stakeholders in their effort to eradicate VAW in Ghana. The study made a number of recommendations, including collaborative efforts of all stakeholders to fight VAW, adequate resourcing and funding of the NGOs by both government and donor agencies. Also recommended is the intensification of the education on the unlawfulness of VAW and that, any culprits apprehended would be punished by law. These and many others will serve as measures to improve the effectiveness of the strategies employed by the NGOs in their fight against the cancerous menace of VAW in Ghana.

Ronald Ebenezer Essel [M.Phil. Finance, BSc (Admin) Finance, UGBS] Senior Tutor, University of Cape Coast (UCC), College of Distance Education [CoDE] University Post Office, PMB, Cape Coast - Ghana Mobile/WhatsApp: 0277823418, 0268556309 Ronald Ebenezer Essel is a Senior Tutor in Finance at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), College of Distance Education (CoDE) in Accra. He holds an M. Phil finance and a B. Sc. (Admin) banking and finance option degrees, both from the University of Ghana Business School, Legon-Accra. He lectures undergraduate courses in Financial Management, Investment Management, International Finance, Financial Markets and Institutions, Financial Management of Banks, Production and Operations Management, Research Methods in Business among other disciplines. Prior to joining UCC - CoDE in July 2015, he was a Credit (Business) Analyst at the then HFC Bank Ltd (now Republic Bank Ghana Ltd) and Prudential Bank Limited where he served for a total of six years in their Corporate Banking and Credit Appraisal Departments, respectively performing credit delivery functions (credit appraisal, monitoring, loan recovery and relationship banking). He also worked with Ghana's bests-poke software engineering house - theSOFTtribe Limited for a year as a software implementation/support officer responsible for software project origination, implementation, end-user training and the provision of general software support services. Ronald Ebenezer Essel's general research focus is in the area of finance/economics in Africa, with specific interests in financial markets developments, FDI and growth, household welfare, firm behaviour and productivity, banking and international trade and development as well as human rights and gender based violence (violence against women and girls) issues in Africa. Ronald has two research publications in internationally reputable peer review (referred) scholarly (academic) journal. Ronald Ebenezer Essel has over eleven years post qualification experience spanning across three different industries namely academia, banking, software implementation/support services and private research/project consultancy services. Ronald has undertaken a number of research based projects/consultancy services including ?Provided consultancy services for Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) Ghana, to support the three