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12 teachers trained on Gender-Based Violence in schools
Twelve teachers from 10 schools in the Greater Accra Region have been trained as gender advocates to help fight Gender-Based Violence (GBV) within their schools.
This training formed part of the “Young voices matter: empowering boys and girls in the fight against GBV” project, led by Regina Asamoah, an International Visitor Leadership Programme (IVLP) Impact Awardee.
It covered essential aspects of GBV, including understanding its dynamics, recognising psychological impacts, leveraging technology for intervention, and employing age-appropriate communication strategies.
Speaking at the event, ACP (Rtd.) Dr. Patience Quaye, a U.S. Embassy Ghana GBV Champion and Fellow of Missing Children Ghana, said gender-based violence was a crime against humanity, hence the need to educate learners, support survivors, and ensure that perpetrators face justice.
She also addressed the potential for teachers to be perpetrators and highlighted the importance for school to have policies and procedures for reporting and addressing such incidents.
A Clinical Psychologist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana Medical School (UGMS), Dr Dzifa Abrah Attah, guided the teachers in identifying psychological traits in learners that may indicate they are experiencing GBV and taught them how to provide emotional and psychological support.
Dr Attah encouraged teachers to familiarise themselves with their school’s mental health resources, consider referrals, follow up on them, and provide academic accommodations during students’ recovery.
Prof. Samuel Kojo Kwofie, Head of the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Ghana, educated teachers on the use of technology to address Gender-Based Violence (GBV).
Prof. Kwofie said there were Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV), which includes cyber stalking, cyberbullying, doxxing (searching for and publishing private or identifying information about a particular individual on the internet, typically with malicious intent), cyber mob attacks, image-based abuse, online impersonation, sextortion (a form of online blackmail where the typically unknown offender creates a fake online profile and tricks or coerces the victim into sending sexual images of themselves), online harassment, revenge porn.
TFGBV is a kind of digital violence committed and amplified through the use of information and communications, technologies or digital spaces against a person based on gender.
“Many of our students may be experiencing TFGBV, and we need to be vigilant, especially given that almost every student has a phone and spends a significant amount of time online,” he said.
Prof. Kwofie advocated the development of locally relevant apps tailored to address the specific manifestations of GBV in schools.
By Jemima Esinam Kuatsinu
Hundreds of street children received a special treat during the Christmas festivities as a result of a collaboration between the management of the La Beach Hotel and the Street Academy in Accra.
It was part of the Hotel’s current arrangement to provide lunch for the children of the Academy every Friday.
Courtesy that partnership, management of the La Beach Hotel feted hundreds of street children housed by the Street Academy, creating a partying moment for the children.
According to officials of the Hotel, the gesture was to let the children feel part of the festivities and not left out.
The children enjoyed delicious meals and snack after which they danced as they enjoyed the moment.
According to the Hotel officials, “the season represents one that every parent gathers their children and shower them with gifts and others to make them happy but sadly, these unfortunate children are left on their own, having no one to care for them.”
“This is an event we intend to make an annual one. Through this, we hope to put some smiles on their faces. It is not proper to leave them on their own.”
The Executive Director of the Academy, Ataa Lartey, expressed gratitude to the management of the hotel, saying that, “this has gone a long way to excite the children and make them feel part of the celebration.”
He said due to the number of children that join around this time of the year, it becomes difficult for the Academy alone to shoulder this responsibility.
“It is not easy to organise such activities alone because it draws a lot of children, that is, those in the Academy and their friends that follow them but with such cooperate supports, we are able to bring them together to share in moments like this,” he told The Spectator.
By Spectator Reporter
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A 30-year-old surrogate mother has delivered a set of quadruplets at The Walking Egg Medical and Fertility Centre at Pokuase in Accra, in a rare surrogacy success that has brought renewed attention to assisted reproductive care in Ghana.
The babies-two boys and two girls- were delivered through a caesarean section in the early hours of Tuesday at 36 weeks and weighed an average 2.5 kilograms each, a weight doctors say was healthy for a multiple pregnancy.
IUI stands for Intrauterine Insemination, a common fertility treatment where healthy sperm are collected, ‘washed’ and concentrated in a lab, and then directly inserted into a woman’s uterus around ovulation using a thin catheter to help sperm reach the egg for fertilisation, often used for unexplained infertility, cervical issues, or mild male factor infertility, and is less invasive than IVF.
Speaking to The Spectator after the surgery, the Medical Director of the Centre, Dr Nana Yaw Osei, said the pregnancy was achieved through Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) and was not planned to result in multiple births.
“With IUI, you introduce prepared sperm into the uterus and have no control over how many eggs fertilized.”
“Unlike IVF, where embryos are formed outside the body and the number transferred can be controlled, this outcome was left entirely to nature,” Dr Osei explained.
He said unlike IVF which could result in multiple babies, this is “possibly the first IUI leading to quadruplets in Ghana.”
He revealed that the surrogacy arrangement was necessary because the intended mother had lost her uterus during surgery to remove fibroids, making it medically impossible for her to carry a pregnancy.
“She had no womb of her own, through no fault of hers,” Dr Osei said, adding that “Surrogacy was the only option available for her to have a biological child.”
When scans later showed that the surrogate was carrying four fetuses, the medical team considered fetal reduction, a procedure sometimes used to reduce risks in multiple pregnancies. However, the option was rejected.
“As a strong Christian, fetal reduction is abortion to me,” Dr Osei said. “After discussions with the intended parents and the surrogate, we all agreed to continue with the pregnancy.”
Despite concerns commonly associated with multiple pregnancies, Dr Osei noted that the surrogate experienced no major complications, and the delivery was smooth. Paediatric assessments conducted after birth confirmed that all four babies are healthy.
Dr Osei again indicated that surrogacy, though still widely misunderstood, is recognised under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 2020 (Act 1027).
He urged the public to engage the subject with greater understanding.
“Surrogacy is not about convenience,” he said. “It is about restoring hope to people who have lost the ability to carry a child.”
Describing the moment of delivery, he added, “I was in tears in the theatre. It reminded me why I chose this profession.”
By Esinam Jemima Kuatsinu
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