Ghana's Recent Political History, Context and Conditions:

Ghana was the first African state to achieve independence from colonial rule, on March 6, 1957. Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was first prime minister and, later, Ghana's first president. With nearly half of its subsequent 50 year history under a succession of coups and military rule, the nation has not been without its human rights growing pains.

Beginning soon after independence, Dr. Nkrumah took several steps to suppress dissent and consolidate his power. For example, his Preventive Detention Act (1958) allowed imprisonment without trial for up to ten years. By 1960, Nkrumah won the power to censor the media before publication. Consequently, Ghanaian Army and police overthrew Nkrumah's regime on February 24, 1966.

Brigadier A.A. Afrifa took charge of Ghana until mid-1970 when Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia became Prime Minister and Edward Akuffo-Addo President. When Dr. Busia's government failed to control the economy and inflation, the military overthrew his government in a bloodless coup on January 13, 1972. In 1978, General I.K. Acheampong's Union Government (UNIGOV) governance concepts failed with Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Akuffo replacing him in a "palace coup."

On June 4, 1979, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings led a group of junior Ghana Army officers to overthrow Lt. Gen. Akuffo's regime. Flt. Lt. Rawlings promptly moved to restore democracy, with Dr. Hilla Limann elected and installed as the President of the Third Republic of Ghana on September 24, 1979.

Dr. Limann's government began on a hopeful note, establishing constitutional institutions and promoting democracy and individual human rights. However, that administration failed to halt the continuing economic decline while condoning widespread corruption and a widening gap between rich and poor.

Thus, on December 31, 1981, Flt. Lt. Rawlings and a small group of former soldiers engineered a second successful coup. Rawlings then headed military rule for some 11 years, winning international support for his economic policies. After seeing the country through to a new democratic constitution, Rawlings won the presidency by wide margins in 1992 and 1996. John A. Kuffour succeeded him as President in 2000, securing reelection in 2004.

The government has seen to significant social improvements since the 1992 constitution and generally respects the human rights of its citizens. However, there are continuing problems in several areas. Amnesty International Ghana, among others, has decried police brutality, citing a long list of reported deaths, vigilante justice, corruption, arbitrary arrest, prolonged pretrial detention, and harsh and life-threatening prison conditions. A vigorous media has also publicized evident infringement on citizens' privacy rights, harassment of journalists, forcible dispersal of legal demonstrations, discrimination and violence against women and children, including female genital mutilation (FGM), child labor and human trafficking.

YHRI Ghana Established in 2006:

After meeting YHRI's President Mary Shuttleworth in Accra during her 2004 world tour, Ghanaian Dzek Atsu Gbemou promptly established YHRI Ghana. The chapter is now incorporated and fully accredited as a non-profit educational and charitable organization in Ghana. YHRI-Ghana's governing executives include acting Country Director Aaron Lawson, Program Director Renate Dzodzomenyo and YHRI Sub-Saharan African Coordinator Mr. Sammy Jacobs-Abbey. Mr. Kwabena Akoto Amponsah and Dickson Amexo have also made important contributions to getting the organization started.

Ghana Chapter's Human Rights Education Initiatives:

Winning team from Accra Secondary School for Girls, YHRI Ghana human rights leadership competition, Accra, June 29, 2007

In conjunction with Tim Bowles' regular trips to the country, YHRI Ghana has carried out human rights education programs over the past two years in multiple communities and schools in Greater Accra, Tema, Kumasi, Cape Coast, Winneba and other locales. Spearheaded by Sammy Jacobs-Abbey's dedication to refugee aid, the chapter is also working on human rights education with a coalition of community organizations in the UNHCR camp in Gomoa, Buduburam, Central Region, still home to 42,000 displaced and disenfranchised Liberians four years following the close of their country's civil war.

Sammy Jacobs-Abbey and Tim Bowles in particular have spread the human rights awareness message through the media, including radio and television interviews and presentations on Top Radio, Channel R, Happy FM, Joy FM, Choice FM, Radio Gold, Hot FM, Citi FM, Atlantic Radio, TV3, Metro TV, and GTV.

While developing this grassroots campaign, YHRI and YHRI Ghana continue to develop a strong relationship with the leadership of the Ghana Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ). In a March 23, 2007 press conference, Tim Bowles and Sammy Jacobs-Abbey presented Richard Quayson, CHRAJ's Deputy Commissioner for Public Education and Anti-Corruption with the first installment of YHRI's educational materials, ample for initial coverage of each of Ghana's 136 districts.

YHRI human rights education materials and the computer equipment awarded as top prize, human rights leadership competition, Accra, June 29, 2007

With Tim's and Sammy's leadership, YHRI Ghana embarked in Spring, 2007 upon its most ambitious project to date. Including an instructional workshop Sammy led at CHRAJ in May, the human rights clubs from four area secondary schools – Accra Secondary School for Girls, Presbyterian Boys Secondary School, Legon, Chemu Secondary School, Tema, and Labone Secondary School – competed on human rights investigation projects, interviewing officials, opinion leaders and people affected by selected abuse trends in their communities. The competition ended with a June 29, 2007 forum held at the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel. With Mr. Samuel Bosompim,

CHRAJ's Public Affairs Director stressing human rights education and youth involvement as a key element in Ghana's future, each school presented their findings to a packed house. Judged by a panel of college- and post-graduate human rights activists, Accra Secondary School for Girls won the top award, a computer system for their school library.

Foster Kottoh and the Presbyterian Boys Secondary School (PBSS) found defilement (child rape) a major community problem, with an estimated thirty-five percent of children below 16 years of age abused annually. Despite criminal prohibitions, this social plague is increasing, with documented deaths, unsafe abortions, and other devastating consequences. PBSS recommended a wide public awareness campaign, recruiting the media and community leaders to carry the message. Above all, broad recognition and condemnation of the problem is the essential condition of addressing and resolving it.

Linda Abban and her Labone Secondary School team addressed child labor and denial of education. Linda cited the 1998 Childrens Act Part 5 (Employment of Children), which imposed criminal fines and imprisonment for exploitative work of school-age youth. She quoted the frustration voiced by a leading educator in one of the club's interviews of stakeholders: Ignorance is the main cause. For such young people, there are capitation grants, free feeding programs and free education at the basic level. Yet, parents choose to have their children stay at home and work to support the adults in the household. The Labone team called on all stakeholders to step up the public awareness efforts essential to conveying the relevance of basic education to individual, family and community well being.

Runners-up team from Chemu Secondary School, YHRI Ghana human rights leadership competition. Accra, June 29, 2007

Anna Jonah of the winning Accra Girls Secondary School (AGSS) team summarized the problems of "streetism," the plight of homeless children in local communities. She pointed out that young people without the anchors of family and education are prime candidates for lives of crime and social dependence, with adverse ripple effects in all sectors of the community. AGSS attributed streetism in part to parental irresponsibility, broken homes and illiteracy. As the phenomenon has such widespread potential for social disruption and stagnation and as complacency necessarily wastes Ghana's greatest resource, its young people, the team suggested government must make solutions a national priority. As Anna put it: "The problem of streetism is very dangerous to the children, family, community and the country as it poses great dangers to the health and education of those involved."

Eva Mensah from Chemu Secondary School (CSS) reported on filth (hazardous public health conditions) as a major human rights problem. Eva pointed out hundreds of lives have been lost through cholera, bilharzias (a worm infection), malaria, and guinea worm infestation in their community. For example, women at [Accra's central] Mokola Market continue to sit and sell in and around overflowing heaps of rubbish, posing disastrous health hazards. She asked why lives should be lost when they have all it takes to ensure healthy living. The team attributed filth to illiteracy, indiscipline, use of unsanitary plastic bags and water sachets. CSS strongly recommended high profile public education efforts to resolve this lingering human rights threat.

The students came away from the process energized to make a difference with further community activism. For example:

"I have been able to learn of the rights of children... This whole project has been very educative... I can go out into the community and educate others on their rights in my own small way. It has also helped me discover other facts about life, I mean this world, which I did not know before. I really think this project has been a great help to me. I would be very pleased if you could organize much more projects like this one."

"The issue of human rights is very essential for a healthy community. Personally I will like to take up the responsibility of assisting in whichever way I [can] to help create awareness of human rights in my community... Human rights [are] a must for every individual to know."

"I learned from this workshop that there are many people unlike me who do not know about their rights. I also learned that I could in my own way be of help to them and that I could also educate them and make them aware of their rights."

"Questions like these kept ringing in my ears when the project of child labor was given to us: ‘Will it be possible?' ‘Am I eloquent enough to stand before opinion leaders and talk to them?' But everything was successful. Through this project I have really developed myself. I can now speak in public with all boldness and authority irrespective of the people I am standing before. I always heard of child labor but did not know much of it and how harmful it was. Through interaction with children under exploitation, I have got to know how wicked [this practice] is. I hope that we will be successful on our project to campaign to eradicate child labor."

YHRI Ghana's Next Project is a Six Month Student-to-Student Human Rights Education Campaign:

In a workshop held the following day, June 30, participating students resolved to take their new-found leadership skills to the next level, a six month project to train as human rights educators in their own right and to instruct their peers in area schools on the basics of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. YHRI is currently preparing to launch that project on the resumption of the school term in October.

To parallel the plans in Liberia and Sierra Leone, this project, in conjunction with CHRAJ, will kick off with training workshops and apprentice actions with the participating students from the four participating schools in early November, 2007, led by Sammy and the YHRI Ghana volunteers. Tim Bowles plans to return to Accra in January, 2008 to take a hand in this instruction.

Equipped with sufficient instructional materials and audio-visual equipment, the students will divide into two interscholastic teams, each expected to approach, engage and deliver the basics of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to their peers in Greater Accra-area secondary schools. As a competition through April, 2008, each team is expected to refine their presentations to the schools to maximize effectiveness and to document the quantity and quality of the delivery through written success stories, formation of human rights clubs at each school they approach, and video and still images of their events and activities. The teams are expected to compile their six months of actions and results for a presentation event to be scheduled in Accra in May, 2008, with college student leaders as judges and educational equipment and materials as prizes to all participants.

Ghana Chapter Aims to Spur Nationwide Human Rights Education:

YHRI Ghana's dream is to help spur a movement to implement human rights education and model youth leadership programs across the breadth of Ghana. With the growing support and partnership with key agencies and stakeholders such as CHRAJ, Ministry of Education, Science and Sports, Parliamentary leaders, Amnesty International, Ghana, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, and the traditional councils of Oguaa (Cape Coast, Central Region) and Lower Axim (Western Region), the chapter is working hard to make this star-high goal a reality.