40 out-of-school young men empowered against gender-based violence

A total of 40 out-of-school young men have been tasked with the responsibility of helping to advocate an end to gender/sexual-based violence, gender inequality, and child marriage in Wa Municipality.

The members who are all tricycle drivers in Wa town at the end of the two-day training developed action plans and are now poised to carry the message against gender/sexual-based violence, gender inequality, and child marriage to the masses at the community level.

Madam Charity Batuure, the Upper West Regional Director of the Department of Gender said during the training in Wa that the idea was to empower them to also have a gender spectacle to enable them advocate for females to benefit from available opportunities and also become empowered.

She said the region was progressing steadily on ending child marriage, noting, however, that there were more to be done to achieve zero per cent.

Madam Batuure noted that it was for this reason that the Department of Gender with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was embarking on the programme to complement the efforts so far.

She said they would equally be engaging traditional, religious, and other opinion leaders on the need to make community by-laws to aid the fight.

The Regional Director of the Department of Gender noted that for a long time now efforts against gender/sexual-based violence and child marriage were focused on the females to the neglect of the males who were the perpetrators.

“These are the people causing the harm, so there is need to train them to understand the effects of their act so that they can help to end the practice by a change of mind”, she said.

“After the inauguration and training, we are going to encourage and support them to draft their own action plans so that they can implement within the communities with guidance from the Department of Gender and support from the UNFPA”, she added.

Madam Batuure, therefore, expressed gratitude to the UNFPA for the support, adding they hope to scale up to cover other districts in the region based on the results they would achieve.

Master Eric Dery, one of the participants noted that the training had indeed exposed them to a lot of things they did not know about, especially gender/sexual-based violence and inequality as well as child marriage.

He said with this education, he and his colleagues were gingered to replicate the education in the various communities and expressed gratitude to the Department of Gender and UNFPA for the training and assured of support for their advocacy activities.