A research fellow at the University of Cape Coast, Dr. Mike Boakye-Yiadom has urged Ghanaian men to join in the fight against the sexual abuse of women across the world.

According to him, the issue of sexual harassment is on the rise and the agenda to kick against it must not be left for women only.

Speaking at a public lecture at Webster University on the #MeToo movement, Dr. Boakye Yiadom said sexual harassment policies within institutions must be implemented.

“Some men have sisters, some have spouses so if it’s about women, it’s also about men. Most victims are hesitant to report and many who report, prefer to speak with family and friends instead of law enforcement agencies. After almost twenty decades this hasn’t changed. There are some aspects of Ghanaian culture that make it difficult for victims to report. Almost every university and all the colleges of education in Ghana have sexual harassment policies which must be implemented,” he noted.

A psychologist, Dr. Funke Baffour, bemoaned the culture in Africa which prevents the voices of women from being heard.

According to her, statistics have shown that every twenty-six seconds a woman in Africa is sexually abused.

“These statistics are only ten years old. How many people have the voice? We are living on a continent where your voices are not allowed to be heard. The voices of women are not heard because if you talk you won’t get married, be a good wife, be good women and you will be accused of bringing shame on to the family.”

Chair of African Diplomacy at the University of Johannesburg, Dr. Yolanda Spies says the Africans continent must embrace the fight which has been tag METOO campaign.

Dr. Spies believes the campaign must involve people from all walks of life, hence it must evolve from #METOO to #USTOO.

“My plea is that the #METOO movement which has gone such a long to inspire women not just in the United States but across the globe should be embraced. Also the #USTOO movement must be embraced. We must make this our problem and not a man versus woman problem. Its problem of humanity, we must teach our children, girls or boys to respect themselves and treat others with the same respect.”

A radio host, Esther Armah, blamed the media for the increasing cases of sexual abuse. According to her, a notion has created that females are responsible for the sexual arousal of men.

“What manifests in the media is the notion women and girls are responsible for the sexual feelings of men so if a man is arouse meaning a woman caused it and that it the narrative that permeates by which these stories are treated by radio hosts, producers, camera crews and writers. The challenge is the places of authority also dominates the way in which these stories are told and we know because of these high profile stories that do come to us, the issue at Ejisuman SHS is one where teachers sexually harass female students,” she said.

The Department of Optometry in collaboration with Vision Aid Overseas(VAO) has organised an eye screening exercise for four communities in the Central Region.

Residents of Abakrampa, Komenda, Jukwa and Esuekyir benefitted from the screening exercises. The team screened more than 2, 000 residents from these communities for various eye diseases. Some were presented with spectacles whilst those with serious eye defects such as cataract and glaucoma were referred to the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital for further examinations and treatment.

In an interview with the Head of Department of Optometry, Dr. Emmanuel Kwasi Abu, said the outreach programme formed part of the collaboration between UCC and VAO. He said the University through the Department signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) three years ago to work with VAO through outreach programmes, training and exchange of both staff and students.

Dr. Abu said for the past two years, the organisation had been sending volunteers from the United Kingdom to join faculty and students of the Department to conduct outreach programmes in some communities in the Central Region. “These volunteers are specialists in the field of Optometry and Ophthalmology who come to UCC to share their expertise with us and also join our team for the outreach programmes” he explained.

Dr. Abu noted that VAO was a Non-Governmental Organisation based in the United Kingdom with the mission of eradicating poverty through providing access to eye care services in developing countries. He explained that the organisation had been training health professionals in Ghana and countries where they operate.

On her part, the Leader of the VAO team, Dr. Ruth Davies, said they were pleased to be working with faculty and students of UCC. “We have come to offer our services and experiences but we have also learnt some techniques from our UCC partners,” she said. She noted that the practice of Optometry in Ghana was similar to the UK. She called on people to visit the hospital regularly to examine their eyes since cataract and glaucoma were the dominant eye diseases they detected through the screening.

The Assembly member for the Esuekyir Electoral Area, Mr. Vincent Woode, was elated for the professional manner in which they were offering the free eye screening. “A woman who was just screened told me that she has been referred to Cape Coast Teaching Hospital for treatment and this shows that they are professionals”, he added.

Mr. Woode appealed to the University and VAO to make the screening exercise a yearly affair since residents and traditional leaders were appreciative of the services rendered to them.

The Institute for Development Studies (IDS) in collaboration with the Youth Inclusive Entrepreneurial Development Initiative for Employment (YIEDIE) is organising a five-day training for trainers course on campus.

The programme which is aimed at providing participants with skills to train the youth and service providers across the value chain. It will equip them to also train young women and men in the technical construction skills and how to start and grow small businesses.

Opening the programme, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Prof. George K. T. Oduro, said the programme was particularly important in the context of the many unemployed, underemployed, out of school and people living on the minimal expected standard of Two Dollars per day in Ghana. He said a key contribution to impacting the development of Ghana was through such initiatives as YIEDIE that is estimating to reach about 24, 000 youth with training in technical, life and entrepreneurial skills leading to employment.

Prof. Oduro said there were numerous examples of nations that had achieved outstanding improvements in living standards and quality of life for their citizens through securing an appropriate educational atmosphere in order to provide high quality education in different technical and professional fields. He mentioned Bangladesh, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia as examples of such nations and added that “Indeed one of the attributes that led to Japan’s industrial success is vocational training”.

The Pro-Vice-Chancellor said Technical and Vocational education as part of the total educational process was a right described in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  He noted that the project was one of the non-formal system approach which provides opportunities for out of school youth to acquire vocational technical skills, which may be used either to obtain employment in the formal sector or for promotion of self-employment and development in the informal sector.

The Pro-Vice-Chancellor commended YIEDIE for choosing IDS as its collaborator for the project. He said IDS as a development research and training institute was endowed with Research Fellows who have a depth of experience in development management research and training. “The multidisciplinary expertise of IDS for collaborative and individual work is a distinctive feature, having been involved in a myriad of studies such as evaluation, baseline, monitoring and evaluation, impact assessments, needs assessments, training, and facilitation” he noted.

The Director of YIEDIE, Mrs. Kafui Mills-Odoi, said her outfit envisaged producing world changers who would contribute to the development of the nation.  She said YIEDIE’s collaboration with UCC was the starting point of a paradigm of interaction to train the next generation of development focused leaders capable of creating employment.

Mrs. Odoi said the collaboration was a synergy between academia and industry to enhance the knowledge base of the youth in the application of entrepreneurial skills so that they do not focus only on the formal sector which was already choked. She said through this project several youth would be empowered to engage in meaningful ventures to reduce the alarming rate of unemployment in Ghana.

The Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Prof. Eric Amuquandoh, said the programme would help participants to put theory into practice. He was optimistic that the programme would equip the participants to make impact on the lives of the youth to be able to stand on their own as great entrepreneurs in Ghana adding that “entrepreneurship is a solid block for nation building”. 

The Director of IDS, Dr. Emmanuel Y. Tinkorang, said employment was gradually shifting from the formal to the informal sector stressing that “statistics indicates that 80% of Ghanaian workers are in the informal sector”.  He noted that the informal sector was driven by people with entrepreneurial skills and therefore, it was important to train them to develop their businesses.

Researchers in Africa have been urged to collaborate and lead research into issues that affect the lives of people on the continent.

This call was made at a roundtable discussion during the closing ceremony of the two-week International PhD Summer School which was hosted by the Institute for Development Studies.

Making a presentation at the function, a former Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Prof. Akosua Adomako Ampofo, said the goal of research was to make a difference in the society so African Researchers should be bold and open minded to new ideas that would enhance their research capabilities on issues affecting the continent. “Somebody should not be telling us the problems we are going through. We should lead and engage in dialogue and collaborative research about issues that affect our lives as Africans.” She noted.

Prof. Ampofo said African Researchers should recognise and make reference to African knowledge producers whether music, poetry, folktales from the elderly in the society. “We cannot privilege other people’s knowledge about ourselves more than our own” she said.  She urged participants to contextualise concepts and terminologies to fit their environment.

The Director of International Centre for Development and Decent Work of the University of Kassel, Prof. Dr. Christoph Scherrer, implored participants to question the status quo to make it better by mastering their research methods. “Forces of the status quo are highly organised at the global level who are wealthy and very influential and have built strong networks”, he said. He noted that there were powerful forces that determine the status quo and therefore, African Researchers needed to network to come out with objective research findings.

Prof. Scherrer advised participants of the Summer School to take advantage of the network that had been created to broaden their horizon about what was happening at other places to help them to be critical of their own environment and also learn from different perspectives. “The issue of collective forces connects with social forces to make your research valuable. If your research is not valuable, then nothing can be made out of it” he noted.

In his presentation, Dr. Kwabena Nyarko Otoo, of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), said though Ghanaian academics have undertaken several research activities however, the concentration had been at micro level.  He urged academics to interrogate issues at the macro level by focusing on all aspects that contribute to the problems identified.  

 “Academics in Ghana are silent about key issues affecting the country” he said.

Dr. Otoo said academics should be advocates of their research work so that people would be aware of the issues and join forces to ensure that the appropriate recommendations were implemented to solve them. He was worried that academics were not interrogating national policies that various governments had introduced in the country. “Academics in Ghana are silent about key issues affecting the country” he noted.

The roundtable discussion was chaired by Prof. Akua Opokua Britwum.