Chieftaincy Ministry to address harmful practices
The Ministry of Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs has outlined a series of programmes to help traditional authorities to address harmful traditional and customary practices which affect the human rights and dignity of individuals.
Practices which affect girls, old women, widows and persons with disability are to be addressed in a series of educational and consultative programmes with chiefs, queenmothers and stakeholders in the traditional system.
Dr Henry Seidu Danaa, the Minister of Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs, who announced this in Accra yesterday when the ministry took its turn at the meet-the-press series, indicated that the first of these programmes, which would focus on witch camps in the country, would take off early next year.
He explained that that was to give meaning to the ratification of the United Nations (UN) Convention on Human Rights, of which Ghana was a signatory.
Dr Danaa said it would also be an opportunity to provide a public educational platform on harmful traditional practices and discuss how to overcome those negative practices in a modern democracy such as ours.
The minister also announced that the ministry, in collaboration with the National House of Chiefs, would organise a peace-building seminar to promote the inclusion of queenmothers into the chieftaincy administration.
According to him, the ministries of Justice and Attorney-General; Gender, Children and Social Protection and Chieftaincy, were working assiduously to speed up the passage of relevant pieces of legislation to enhance the role of queenmothers in the sphere of traditional rule.
Dr Danaa indicated that by law, the term 'chief' included queenmothers and that not until queenmothers sat with chiefs within the various levels of the chieftaincy administration, their full potential would not be realised by traditional authorities.
The major focus of the ministry, according to him, was to put in place structures and systems that would promote the establishment of a vibrant and progressive chieftaincy administration for the entire country.
He said it was also the policy of the ministry to facilitate the promotion of political tolerance, peaceful co-existence within the various traditional areas of Ghana to strengthen national identity and pride, as well as speed up the socio-economic development of the country.
Challenges
One of the major challenges facing the ministry, Dr Danaa said, was inadequate budgetary allocation and staff, as well as poor and old infrastructure in the regions which needed to be renovated or, in some cases, new ones built.
By Mary Mensah/Daily Graphic/Ghana