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The Executive Director of RISE Ghana, a non-governmental organisation, Mr Awal Ahmed, has called on the media to increase its reportage and advocacy on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) issues.

He explained that it was also necessary for the media to produce stories “using the human rights angle” as well as highlighting individuals and institutions that are promoting best practices in the management of SGBV issues with the hope of addressing such issues in the home and in communities.

Mr Ahmed made the call when he facilitated a day's training workshop at Bolgatanga on SGBV reporting and advocacy, organised by RISE Ghana with funding from Oxfam Ghana and the Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF) through the European Union.

Ten participants from both the electronic and print media attended the workshop.

They discussed issues such as SGBV policies, gender-based violence terminologies, why gender-based violence issues are under reported and how they are reported, ensuring privacy in gender-based violence reporting and issues to consider before publishing gender-based violence stories.

The workshop was under a three-year project dubbed “Enough,” which is aimed at taking positive action to end SGBV in Ghana.

Mr Ahmed further observed that “naming and shaming perpetrators of SGBV was also key in addressing SGBV in communities”.

The director intimated that the media also had a major role to play in ensuring that survivors of SGBV were well informed about where and how they could seek redress and get justice.

Project and activities

In her presentation, the Project Manager, Ms Jaw-Haratu Amadu, said the goal of the Enough project was to create an enabling environment for girls and women to know, claim and exercise their rights to end SGBV in Ghana, Mali and Liberia.

She stated that the media would be empowered while clubs would also be formed in the Pusiga District and Kassena Nankana Municipality to promote increased reportage and advocacy on SGBV.

Peer review workshops, she noted, would also be organised for members of the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs on what they were doing to end SGBV in their respective communities.

Trend

According to Ms Amadu, statistics from the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) indicated that reported rape cases increased from 236 in 2016 to 311 in 2017 across the country.

Defilement cases, she said, also increased from 722 in 2016 to 793 in 2017 while cases of assault increased from 4,190 in 2016 to 5,019 in 2017 nationwide.

She added that many of the 5.5 million adolescents in Ghana did not get urgently needed sexual reproductive health services and information.