Lawyer Mary Ohenewaa Afful with her book
Human Rights Lawyer and advocate, Mary Ohenewaa Afful, has launched a manual on Preventive Crime about law, abuse, and psychology, which serves as a comprehensive guide on issues relating to abuse and domestic violence in the mental or psychological state of survivors of abuse as well as abusers.
According to the human rights lawyer, abuse cases within the country are on the rise and need to be treated as a national issue. She therefore wrote the book to aid in educating the citizenry on abuse and its psychology in order to equip them with tools needed to fight against the forms of abuse.
The book is a new version of her previous publications on both the ‘Laws on Domestic and Sexual Violence’ and ‘Cycle of Abuse,’ and is more detailed in areas of various types of abuse, the punishments and jail terms associated with acts of violence, and the psychology related to violence.
The book is divided into two parts, with the first part talking about laws on abuse including domestic and sexual violence, while the second part talks about the psychology of abuse including personality disorders in domestic violence as well as anger and trauma relating to violence.
“This manual will help you understand and identify if what you are going through in your marriage, relationship, home, school, or workplace is abusive in one sense or the other. The issue is that it is quite difficult to even identify abuse or domestic violence, and that is the reason why this book is effective for all walks of life as it explains the kinds of violence in details and in real life situations,” she explained.
Ms. Afful stressed that as a victim of abuse, she has realised that the psychological aspects of abuse have been severely ignored and thus needs to be given much attention in the study of law and abuse.
“I can vehemently say that we need to know not just what the law says about abuse, but also the psychological consequences that are left with victims of domestic abuse as well as character traits of abusers which could lead us to identifying underlying factors that cause abuse in the first place,” she added.
Mary Ohenewaa Afful is a full time practising lawyer with specialty in Corporate Law and Matrimonial cases, and is also an author and philanthropist. Her human rights advocacy programme has benefitted over 85,555 school children as well as teachers, churches, and societal groups.
By Abigail Atinuke Seyram Adeyemi