WOMEN’S RIGHTS activist, Margaret Brew Ward, has revealed that a young girl who scored aggregate 30 in the Basic Education Certificate Examinations was branded a witch.
“Recently, there was a case we heard when we visited one of the communities that a girl who got around aggregate 30 in the BECE was [branded a witch]… meanwhile you know in the cities people are striving for aggregate 8, eight 1s and what not”.
Speaking on Joy News on the ‘Probe’ recently, she said the incident happened as result of the girl’s ability to gain admission to Senior High School in that community.
“Just because in that community, no girl had passed to go to the secondary school, so for a girl to do that, she must have been a witch,” she said.
According to her, it took the intervention of her outfit and some state institutions to get the student the needed support.
She mentioned also that some inhumane treatment meted out to young women in some parts of the country had to be addressed.
Dr. Angela Dwamena Aboagye, Executive Director of the Ark Foundation, also asked the state to take critical steps to address such challenges.
Executive Director of The Sanneh Institute, Prof John Azumah, said such challenges confronting women in some parts of the country could be addressed through legislation as politicians like to “tiptoe around it in their own interest.”
BY Ebenezer K. Amponsah