Deputy Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Mercy Larbi, has called on Ghana‘s Attorney General and Ministry of Justice to submit the country’s human rights reports to the CHRAJ.
Speaking at a two-day workshop for the drafting of CSO Shadow Reports on United Nations Universal Periodic Review Mechanism, Larbi said Ghana has not submitted its human rights reports to the African commission for 20 years.
‘The ten areas which Ghana had failed to submit reports to the African commission for 20 years now [are] the African Human Rights Report, treaty bodies including the Committee on International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Committee on International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, among others’, Ghanaian Times quoted her as saying.
She also noted that some of the reports were supposed to be done in two years and that Ghana could still submit all the reports to the African commission this year if concerted efforts were made.
Larbi charged CSOs, including disability associations, the blind federation and women groups, to submit their reports by 14 July, 2022, while the government was given up to October.
Amnesty International (AI) reported in 2021 that women continued to suffer discrimination and gender-based violence while attacks against LGBTI people we also intensified in Ghana.
The United States Department of State 2021 annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices also recorded human rights abuses, including clamping down on free speech, politically motivated killing, inhumane treatments, arbitrary arrests, and denial of fair trial, in Ghana.
The Executive Director of POS Foundation, Jonathan Osei Owusu, who was also at the workshop, urged the Ghanaian government to deepen collaboration with civil society if the dividends of democracy are to be delivered to the masses.
He also underscored the need for state actors to pay attention to mental health, disability, LGBTQ, violence against women and children and attacks on journalists in Ghana.
Photo source: Ghanaian Times
