Yikes! Sorry again for the lateness.

Wow! The weeks really fly by... but let’s see what I can sum up.

With respect to the presidential forum – a few days ago, the date for the funeral for the most recent finance minister of Ghana was announced. Apparently he was well-loved by everyone and so everyone, of course, will go to his funeral (which in itself is quite encouraging, since bipartisan support of any politician will probably go a long way in itself to ensuring that there will be a peaceful aftermath from the election). However, the funeral is scheduled for the same day as WiLDAF’s forum – and it was at the exact same time! So now, WiLDAF has rescheduled the forum to the afternoon, but this already has created big problems. First off, normal funerals in Ghana are already huge events where everyone gets sucked in, so just imagine the scope of how much coverage and discussion there will be on the funeral. That alone means that WiLDAF and other organizations won’t get as much media coverage as they were hoping for from the forum (though in all honesty, since the minister died some time ago, it would’ve been prudent to schedule the forum for a Wednesday or Tuesday, given that all official funerals start on Thursday). It also is a bit tragic because it shows just how much respect women’s issues are accorded, since it’s becoming increasingly questionable if presidential candidates will actually turn up to the forum (even if it is at a different time of the day). I mean, yes, the Honourable Baah-Wiredu was a great man, but in all honesty, there is an election with 22% of the vote apparently undecided. If this was a debate on other issues or a fundraising event I have my doubts that people would scrap attending – seriously, this would’ve been a good way to tap into the female vote for any of the parties, since females are highly underrepresented in Parliament and none of the parties actually makes a strong argument for a gender parity policy in their manifestos. Of course, maybe the funeral really means that much to people, but I really think that it might also be reflective of just how lowly regarded women’s issues are in the country.

The presidential forum did occur and fortunately five VP candidates did show up, though it was unfortunate that we didn’t see any of the presidential candidates show up. I thought it was interesting and that it probably showed quite a bit of just what leaders likely thought of the debate – they know that the constituency was going to talk about the funeral for ages (which it did and the amount of spending for the funeral was amazing – “anyone who wants transportation to the funeral will get it for free; the catering is by X or Y and everyone is invited, etc etc...” – quote from TV3, the main news station of Accra, which brings me to my next criticism. Funerals are taken extremely seriously in Ghana, but then again what people doesn’t take death seriously? Just consider, though – for a developing country, having a state funeral that exceeds even those held in developed nations... and to think what the funds could do. A few million cedis to fund a school feeding program? That would make sense, or a few million to try and conceive a government affirmative action hiring policy, or to provide rural education. But no – they spend the money on this to add insult to the injury of building a new presidential complex, the Golden Jubilee House. I saw the old one, the Castle, at south Osu overlooking the ocean – it looked functional and I thought would be fine for future leaders with a bit of renovation. However, they go and gut the national zoo in Accra to build something remarkably ostentatious, something which makes Casa Loma or 24 Sussex pale in comparison – and of course to ask for costs of this, the government says, is “classified information”. Right. It really indicates the extent to which corruption and self-serving politics can occur in Ghana, and it is worrisome because corruption disproportionately affects the poor and those who need government services, the larger share being women and children. Other parties claim they would be principled, and the ruling one claims it is, but I have to take things with a cynic’s point of view. It is known that power corrupts, but in Ghana because there isn’t enough money to create a disincentive to corruption, it’s like there’s absolute corruption, indicating that somewhere absolute power is being harnessed, if the proverb is an accurate saying.

As it is, the presidential candidates also likely didn’t show up because they likely didn’t have any good ideas on women’s issues. Indeed, through two hours of listening to the vice-presidential candidates, I only heard a lot of self-congratulation about how far Ghana has gotten and identifying the issue that women need to be more seriously considered. However, only one of the five VP candidates (Petra Amegashie, a woman herself) really tried to orient her answers towards women, which was telling that for all the lip service politicians paid, they didn’t see an issue about the status of women in specific. The only other person that I felt really addressed the questions with a clear and firm plan and addressed things was Hannah Tete, who in my opinion was the best speaker of the whole forum (and who, incidentally, replaced one of the VP candidates who claimed he had to “fly to the States” that evening). Ms. Tete, in my opinion, would be an amazing president of Ghana because she actually has a good grasp of issues, can think off the cuff, and is very articulate. She’s sort of like a more personable version of Hilary Clinton, which is quite telling since I don’t think there’s any equivalent of Barack Obama in Ghana at the moment. Thus, even though the debate was televised, I really don’t know if the issues of women from across Ghana were issued, and indeed, WiLDAF and partners had actually canvassed across the country to try and get a sense of some very important issues concerning women. A few of the questions that the moderators did end up addressing to the candidates were:

• I am a girl of sixteen years. Two years ago, I moved from my village in northern Ghana to Kumasi to be a porter, upon which I have been attacked and sleep on the streets. I have never been to school, and I want to ask you what plans you have to give children like myself hope in the future, or my younger siblings.
• I am a representative of the association of the blind. As a disabled woman, I am discriminated against because the majority of available work to women involves manual labour, which I am limited in doing. What parts of your disability policies address the issue of gender inequality even within aiding the disabled?
• I am a nurse, a health provider. I see many of my friends move from Ghana because of the lure of higher incomes. It is clear that in order for Ghanaian women to progress, their health status must improve, but in order to ensure this we need a strong health infrastructure. What plans do you have to try and retain me and my coworkers in our homeland?

See, the questions are deep, but they should be easily anticipated (or analogues thereof) if the political parties had done their homework. As it was, the only person who seemed to was Hannah Tete, whilst Petra Amegashie was good at appealing to women voters. Personally, even though the debate was advertised and all, I felt very disappointed coming out of it because to me, the only person with substantive answers was a person who wasn’t at the forefront of their party.

Then again, considering the presidential debates I’ve gotten to see in Ghana, I guess it sort of figures that the content of the VPs “debating” wasn’t going to be scintillating. In the first of two debates given by the IEA (the Institute for Economic... I forget what A stands for), the candidates knew how to ramble and not address the questions at all, even though unlike the VP forum where the questions were kept secret, these issues were given in advance to the parties to prepare. I didn’t get to see the second but what I noticed is that in Ghana, much like Canada, there seems to be an absolute lack of a statesman, someone who is willing to stand up and say controversial things that are major issues which need to be addressed, and to give radical ideas. The whole concept to each is that they’ll somehow increase secondary school education to 100% across the country, or they’ll provide free health insurance to everyone in Ghana. And somehow they all say they’ll put Ghana in the first-world set of countries by 2015. Great ideas, but there are a few things they seem to be forgetting, such as:

• Education in Ghana, across secondary schools, is highly variable. For instance, one graduate of high school, in preparing for her matriculation exam for math (to get into university), came to ask me for help. The questions were for things like plotting lines on a Cartesian plane, or to solve two-equation, two-variable systems. And then, when I go to the university at Legon, the level of education is still rather behind – they’re only starting to learn how to do acid-base titration in university and aren’t even going into labs to improve their practical knowledge, and they’re “biomedical engineering majors”! Thus, in all honesty, if Ghana is going to become competitive, they need to up the standard of education across all institutions and try to make sure that there is infrastructure to give children time to learn these things. People point to the Asian miracles and even China as quite wondrous, but the fact is that all Asian wonder-countries have strong science and computing programs which serve as the backbone of their development (though it remains to be seen if they’ll overtake Europe and North America for innovation). If the base in Ghana remains to be that far behind what graduation standards are in Canada or the US, it’ll take a very long time for Ghana to catch up, regardless of the drive of the population.
• Just like education in Ghana is variable, the quality of health services is quite different across the country. Much like the nurse’s question of before, it is quite evident that there is a problem of providing health services in a country where the estimated doctor:population ratio is somewhere in the range of 1:22000. Thus, to have a comprehensive health system there needs to be some kind of health care reform to either encourage doctors to stay, or maybe as national service, to sign doctors to a longer term of tenure in Ghana before they’re allowed to move elsewhere to practice.

I admit that I didn’t get to see the second debate but I feel doubtful about people’s ability to accomplish. My hostess sums it up quite concisely: “they promise, they get to power, they drive around in big shiny black cars and when you then try to talk to them, they don’t have time except to leave sand in your face. Then, in four years, they’re suddenly your best friends once more.” Politics.

Speaking a little more about the election, Ghana’s voting day is December 7 as mandated by the Constitution. That means, this time around, it falls on a Sunday, which is actually quite challenging for many people across the country, particularly since the country is predominantly Christian and very devout Christians at that. However, there is definitely a greater effect on women as compared to men for Sunday being the voting day, as a larger percentage of women declare that they plan not to vote. The Ghanaian Christian Council and WiLDAF thus researched the reasons why, and many of the reasons are quite obvious. Some cited that it was a holy day and thus no one should vote (and to that, the leaders of attendant local Christian councils kept insisting that there should be a new constitutional amendment to exclude any religious day from being the voting day, though if one looks at the pluralistic version of the Constitution that could mean almost any day could be considered religious). However, many of the women cited the high amount of domestic labour or social commitments on weekends as being highly difficult issues to work around. As all the Christian leaders had accepted that the right to vote was universal to all adults and that in the terms of Christians it represented a duty to vote if the state wasn’t oppressive, it became very interesting to see what they came up with as ways to encourage women to vote.

What was somewhat troubling about their solutions was that while they were more amenable to trying to talk to the various parishes to encourage pastors to reschedule services to other days or other times in the day to encourage people to vote, when it came to women-specific initiatives the predominantly-male group didn’t really seem to see the obvious solutions to encouraging women to vote. They saw the women’s domestic duties primarily as obligations and that they should be making fufu (which is boiled cassava, pounded until it is a kind of blob that goes well with soup or stew, and is extremely labour and time-intensive to make and guess who has to prepare it in entirety?) since there is time on the weekends, they said. When WiLDAF and the GCC both insisted on trying to either take a greater share of domestic duties that day, or to be less fussy in their desires for certain foods on the Sunday, many did nod as if first considering it, but I even saw some old men in the crowd shaking their heads as if it was their right to have fufu on a Sunday. These self-same old men were concerned about other important issues such as lack of transport to voting stations (as many drivers of tro-tros, the rickety buses that dominate Ghana, don’t drive on that day) or even in trying to give domestic household help the time to vote, but they didn’t seem to recognize the implicit fact that without them helping, their wives and other female relations would be so busy at home that they wouldn’t have time to vote. Or, maybe they did but didn’t believe their wives should be voting. It was quite odd, to say the least, and something very telling because I saw more domestic help and driver-centered suggestions than I did those specifically targeting women.

Then again, at the church my hostess goes to (and so I go, since I don’t really want to be the social outcast of Accra, though I’m not exactly that religiously enamoured), it quickly becomes obvious that the status of women in Ghanaian society is at the very least a problem. On the side of the Constitution, women are construed as equals and per things like the presidential forum, theoretically there are efforts being made to encourage women to assume more of the mantle of leadership and responsibility. However, at my hostess’ church I observe that women don’t take part in any of the process of carrying out the Sunday service, be it delivering communion, taking the donations, leading prayers or sermons. The church has a very restrictive view of what the Bible says, apparently, that women should be “submissive” and that men should be “dominant”, which is sort of equivalent to the evidenced “public-private” divide that used to exist in previous European society. To this extent, even when the Women’s Group in the church met (to whom I donate more often than I do to the church itself), I was asked to pray for the group because apparently, when a man is present, women shouldn’t lead the prayers. I found that the denomination my hostess attends isn’t too sizable a representation, but if many of the larger denominations take similar views (and in even the Presbyterian church I went to once I saw a highly restricted role of women), then how are women to balance their “religious duties” alongside those that government is supposed to be encouraging them to do? Indeed, given how government in Ghana seems to love to invoke God and talk about trying to unite religion and state, how can the government actually carry out its proper mandate? And this whole view of women and men played out not once but three times in the church in one week – there was this discussion I got stuck into once by some senior member of the church, then there was a sermon given by a man my age who’s not married about the “successful traits of marriage”, and that primary is that women should be “submissive” and men “dominant” (which I think is personally a crock, since my parents have a rather equality-based marriage and I personally have only seen huge disputes erupt once or twice in their relationship of over thirty years, and of course the advice comes from the unmarried pastor, though there are many married ones... sure, I think the married ones probably would say the same thing but a “happy” marriage from a submissive-dominant position is happy on whose part? Both? Just one? And if one, let’s consider which side...). Again, talking to my hostess, I made light of the fact that though the majority of attendants at the church are almost always women, they have no power, to which she laments it and says that I should talk to the pastors. I will, I think... but maybe in a sermon form, where I will talk about gender equality – though I need to find the requisite mentions in the Bible. I’m unfortunately not much of a theologian.

WiLDAF works quite a bit with churches, though, to try and instill at least some knowledge of gender-friendly laws, particularly in criminal law and domestic violence. Going to one of the churches with Pat, Gifty and Racheal was quite informative in this respect, as the aim was to go and talk to the youth about domestic violence. What struck me was just how well Pat could converse with the youth – though she is from another area of Ghana, she speaks the Accra local dialect (Ga) very well and had the children laughing and participating a lot. She was the real salesperson who, I think, managed to crack the ice with the teens at first. Gifty could mostly speak in just English, but since Pat had built up such a good rapport between the teens and WiLDAF through her speech, Gifty’s presentation on the laws on domestic violence was very helpful and very well received. It was great to see them present, because I was blown away at how well Pat and Gifty managed to converse with the youth, which are traditionally a problem group to reach in Canada. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that Pat managed to strike more than one balance at a time – between instructor and friendly figure, between friendly figure and moderator, and finally, taking a leadership role whilst encouraging dialogue and chat between the youths. I think some of it likely had to do with the presentation of real domestic violence pictures (and the instances of abuse are severe in Ghana – so much so to the point that husbands amputate their wives with cleavers and to this date still haven’t been prosecuted, even though it had been twelve years since the incident). I really saluted the courage of the victim for agreeing to be in picture, since it really served as a strong wake-up call to the teens in the room; I also really salute everyone at WiLDAF for doing something with such a strong social mandate. See, in Canada, you never get the sense you do anything quite to that level. As a lawyer, what am I going to do in article in Canada? Write briefs? Go to court and sue people for health insurance or for car repairs? Sure, that’s accomplishing something – but in many ways this really shows me just how empty such an existence might prove to be. Of course, I want to be part of that emptiness, and to make money and live in comfort and all, but I’m glad to be in Ghana. Many people wondered what possessed me to go, but I couldn’t really say anything until I got here. Now, I think I still can’t give a solid reason but that doesn’t mean I would change what I’m doing if I could redo it.

I also got to participate directly in teaching people in a domestic violence training, too. One interesting component of how WiLDAF operates involves legal literacy volunteers (LLVs) who act sort of as “in the field” practitioners to educate people on the law and their rights. Thus, I was helping teach people in Ho about the law itself, and it was amazing to see the variety of experiences who came there. So many people who had seen almost anything imaginable in terms of the cruelty one can inflict on one another, so many stories (even happening to them personally) of restricted freedoms, and in many ways they didn’t even know the full extent of their rights. In this way, I really feel like my teaching made a tangible difference to everyone in the field. It was good to go with Pat and work with her and Melody in trying to help the LLVs learn the law and become versed in it. What was interesting about the training, too, was that in teaching them it seems like WiLDAF does some sports psychology-esque work in getting the LLVs to “envision” and act out situations where they can come in to help, and then act them out in role-plays. The role-plays were quite interesting, albeit I couldn’t understand them in full since many were in native languages; however, it showed the drive of everyone present to try and combat the problem of domestic violence. I’m also going to go to Ho (in the Volta Region, or the far east of the country) to work on the courtwatch project, which I think will be interesting but I think also quite frustrating in many ways.

Working with Reena has been interesting since she brings such a different view of the courtwatch’s functions and what she hopes to observe in court. I really enjoy working with her, and when we finalized the courtwatch checklist I thought we really did manage to get a good grasp of procedural and substantive aspects of the law, as well as rehabilitative components that need to be studied in further. Without Reena, I suspect I would’ve stuck to the legal topics without considering things from a “personal” or social work point of view. It’s telling in some ways that when I came from METRAC I had some of this knowledge but even in the field I still revert to the default legal analysis, which somewhat indicates how much law tries to divorce itself from those kinds of issues. It’s hard, too, because Ghana has so many elements to the Domestic Violence Act that seem foreign in practice to me, particularly because many of them seem either to be somewhat large areas of discretion for judges to operate in (ie trying to determine things from a rehabilitative or alternative dispute resolution perspective), or perhaps limiting in some ways. With Reena, I finished up the legal forms and also tried to come up with something to look at DOVVSU with, which will be useful I think. Plainly put, working with le Mina (er Renee, er Mini; it’s an inside joke) is awesome. By the way, we’ve both been on TV and Reena looks *way* better on TV. I think we’ve both been on three times by my count.

It’s interesting since when Reena was gone I went to DOVVSU to watch the unveiling of the Ghanaian Child Abuse Network (CAN), which tries to combine the police, hospitals, rehabilitative areas, etc in trying to bring a polycentric approach to the issue of violence against children. It was interesting, though, because I have a suspicion that even if gender-based violence decreases in Ghana, age-based violence will probably stay quite high because of the even bigger disparity in power imbalance between children and parents or people in caretaker positions. Also, in society, children are viewed as quite low on the totem pole, both traditionally and even in church (the whole ‘honour thy mother and father’ commandment comes into issue). And it’s telling because the statistics bear the brunt – there has been an increase of reported sex-based crimes in Ghana, but the number against children has risen much faster than even that number. It’s a serious issue and it is gender-based, but in terms of many things, it seems even parents are sometimes complicit in allowing certain things to occur. A case in point: from the Ho domestic violence training, a girl was seven years old when she was defiled by two teachers in her school. The parents reported to DOVVSU at one time, but when outside observers came to check up on the case, apparently the parents had dropped the charges, the teachers had paid the parents four hundred cedis and even DOVVSU had taken ten percent of that “payment”. If this isn’t child exploitation, I don’t know what is. Also, in Ghana, while it has been outlawed female genital mutilation (FGM) occurs in many tribes in Northern Ghana in secret. It was horrible to see a young woman go on to talk about how she was restrained by men, and her experience, and her lack of feeling during sex, and even worse was the pain she said she felt everytime she bathed herself and water touched that area. And she didn’t even have the worst FGM – there’s even four types of the demented practice with the worst one removing the labia minora, stitching the labia majora completely and leaving only a small hole for menstrual flow to pass through. On the other side, in some tribes boys entering their teens are also forced to undergo circumcision, which must be painful and potentially dangerous. In sum, these crimes are age-based and in a way, I think society is somewhat complicit because it likes to limit the rights of youth in many ways, but then I can’t think of a way around that because there is a good reason for it, but in many ways the reason has to be more flexibly exercised than it tends to be. Children, much like women, need to be more strongly protected, and I think WiLDAF, in going out to teach teens about the Domestic Violence Act, is somewhat of a trailblazer in the area since not many groups go out to actually teach teens about the law – rather, they go and tell them some parts of their rights but not everything.

Finally, I helped Pat complete WiLDAF’s report for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which is a human rights review binding to all countries in the world, including the first world. All I have to say is that in theory it sounds good but international commitments have a way of being feel-good documents that don’t do anything. Examples include the League of Nations, the nuclear non-proliferation agreement, and sadly enough in many ways the UN. Maybe, though, this has a better chance of succeeding because whilst the other examples had involved just government this UPR tries its best to include the views of NGOs in the countries being reviewed at the time. NGOs may help to make some difference because they bring a separate viewpoint from within the country itself (without outside observers) that can start to explain certain nuances or holes found with the practices of the reviewed country. Since human rights is a larger mandated issue than nuclear weapons or many of the UN’s initiatives, it might just be that reports from groups like WiLDAF might help to influence government behaviour and commitments. However, I doubt it.

Well, that’s all I have to write for now. Sorry for the long wait! I promise things will get better but the past few weeks have been terribly busy. Anyway, for now... take good care!

LAP...Court Watch

Let's see...what have I been up to.

The Takoradi office recently held a DV Training seminar for LLVs, which I was lucky to be able to participate in. As part of a section on 'global awareness' I created a presentation on the domestic violence from a Canadian perspective. Hopefully it was somewhat helpful to the LLVs. It was great getting to meet some LLVs and gaining a greater understanding of the LAP program. I'll write more about the LAP program next week, but for this post I thought to continue with what is happening in the court watch.

The barriers I am facing are as follows:

1.) Language barriers - In Takoradi, everyone prefers to speak Fante; therefore, although the magistrate, lawyers and other court personnel tend to speak in english, the victim(s)/accused person(s) speak in Fante. As a result, I lose a great deal of valuable information.

2.) Being the "obrunie" in court has its benefits and drawbacks. One of the main drawbacks is that I am unable to blend into the courtroom atmosphere, which I feel is an essential part of being an observer.

3.) Being aware that an observer is present, court personnel may be performing their jobs better than usual. Thus my results may be different from what is realistically going on in the court on a day to day basis.

4.) Where I have to sit during proceedings is at the same table as the lawyers and other court personnel. I have no freedom to write things down (which sometimes may be negative). I tried to sit behind that table during my last experience in court; however, I was told to move back to the front table.

In terms of the language barrier, CCI suggested a translator. However, there may be costs involved, and I wonder how much significant information is "lost in translation". I am gaining quite a lot of interesting information on the general demeanor of court personnel, and I am noting anything I find to be remotely significant (mostly race, class and gender related observations); however, I understand that my main objective is to observe DV related cases.

The positive side is that whatever I experience (negative or positive) will allow me to make useful recommendations for the continuation of this project for future court watch volunteers. James will be heading to Ho in the upcoming week, so it will be interesting to see his observations.

Updates

It has been an eventful week. One of WiLDAFs mandates is to increase women’s participation in government. Therefore, on Tuesday and Wednesday I attended a capacity building workshop organized and facilitated by WiLDAF and ABANTU for Development; “Strengthening the Capacity of Women Parliamentary Candidates for Election 2008”. The purpose of this workshop was to educate female candidates on various elements of effective governance. This includes:

(1) Understanding democracy, and approaches to increase women’s participation in governance (2) The importance of involving women in politics; challenges and solutions
(3) The electoral process in Ghana
(4) Developing an effective campaign message
(5) The importance of the media
(6) How to increase funding
(7) Showcasing women currently in politics

Some of the key barriers to women’s participation in government were defined as:
- Lack of time – Due to traditional roles, women are often solely responsible for household work, and any work involving the children. Thus, there is a lack of time.
- Training – Female children are more often removed from school due to financial constraints within the family. Traditional gender roles place women in roles associated with the maintenance of the household and children; therefore, educating females is not viewed as a priority. Also, traditional gender roles often result in the belief that males should have better occupations and be the main providers in the household. Therefore, females will often strive for so-called lesser-than occupations that are not perceived as harmful to the male ego. Additionally, females are often removed from school if they become pregnant, whereas the males who impregnate the females are allowed to remain.
- Information – Women lack the access to information to be effective decision-makers in their constituencies. Much of this is due to the lack of training and resources allocated to women because of patriarchy.
- Money – Women lack the resources to fund effective campaigns. A key point in this argument is that male candidates are given more monetary support from their respective parties.
- Support – Lack of support from family, political parties, etc.Interestingly, a lack of resources was the main concern amongst the majority of female candidates in attendance. The women felt that things such as posters, t-shirts, etc. were crucial elements to the success of their campaign (which arguably is true in this day and age of politics). It is difficult to campaign against someone who has the resources to put up a billboard, when you barely have the resources to print t-shirts.
Some of the strategies outlined for increasing women’s participation in government are:
- Government should enforce the Affirmative Action Policy
- Traditional roles should be eliminated (beginning from the household)
- Female children must be educated
- Males must support women
- The state should provide adequate childcare for families
- Cultural practices that are detrimental to women should cease
- Political parties must provide adequate funding and other support to female candidates. Additionally, parties should select women candidates for ‘safe electoral districts’ rather than marginal ones.

Being that WiLDAF and ABANTU for Development are non-partisan organizations, all the support that could be given (in a non-partisan way) was given (e.g. posters supporting women in politics, “We Know Politics” t-shirts). The workshop was a great success and all the women expressed that the event was extremely helpful to the effectiveness of their campaigns. The evening news showcased the event, which is great news, and according to James, I got my 20 seconds of fame! That makes T.V. appearances: James – 1, Reena – 1

On another note, I started my court watch on Friday. On Friday’s Family Tribunal takes place. This generally deals with issues surrounding child maintenance. Unfortunately, two of the four panel members were not in court for unknown reasons, so most of the cases had to be adjourned to next Friday. One interesting thing I noted was that some court staff were not aware of the fact that child maintenance issues can fall under the DV Act. According to James, child maintenance may largely be the jurisdiction of the Children’s Act; therefore, this may account for some of the confusion.

Also, there is quite a large barrier to my court watch work (and possibly James’). In Takoradi most people prefer to communicate in Fante. This means that although court personnel, lawyers and the magistrate speak in English during proceedings, the victim(s)/accused speaks in Fante. This is not translated into English; therefore, there is quite a bit of significant information that is lost.

Another interesting story – I asked John about social welfare in Ghana. He said that the current government implemented a system where the very poorest members of society receive about 8 Ghana Cedis monthly. These 8 Ghana Cedis are not even given to each member of the family; it is one amount that is supposed to cover all members of the family. Also, it is important to note that Ghana’s culture is largely community based. Therefore, extended families tend to take care of one another if financial hardships arise. In effect, ‘community = social welfare’. This has largely defined the economic welfare system in Ghana, so it is quite interesting that this government implemented this new system. According to John, the new system is pointless in the context of Ghana’s community-based culture.

I’ll be heading into Accra in a few days for the Women’s presidential debate. I have to say, it is very exciting to be an Intern with an organization as well established as WiLDAF.

Just a new note: I attended court again today; however there were no DV related cases. Unfortunately, my experience reinforced the language barrier. How can I assess the type of domestic violence occurring (from the victims mouth) if I cannot understand? As you can tell, I am quite frustrated.

Until next time,
Reena