liens - GID

In the run up to the law there was considerable debate about the need
for such a law, and whether it might run counter to cultural norms and
expectations. Politicians seemed lukewarm but Gender activists lobbied
hard for the law. In some sectors of the community there were concerns
that the law could criminalise some aspects of domestic and conjugal
relations leading to irreparable damage and even marital break-ups
with the expected negative consequences for couples, especially women,
and children.
Lack of Success in Containing Sexual and Domestic Violence
In spite of Government efforts and the interventions of interested
NGOs, particularly those that espouse gender empowerment and women’s
welfare, Ghanaian Newspapers and media continue to report copiously
episodes of sexual violence, almost on daily basis. The same
press commentary has expressed surprise at the recurrence of the phenomenon,
leading sometimes to search for explanations.
In debating the issue in the media two positions seem to emerge.
Firstly, there is the view that widespread sexual violence and physical
abuse have always existed in the country though not widely reported by
the press and the media. Therefore what is now seen as a phenomenal
explosion ought to be nothing more than changing media interest in an
old issue. The second argument is that the current high visibility of
sexual violence should be blamed on globalisation and Western influence
spread by the media’s own portrayal of permissiveness as well as
on the agency of Western sources of popular entertainment including
cinema and video shows which have glamorised sex and sexual violence.
It would seem that both explanations have kernels of truth. Liberalisation
of the media since the beginnings of the 1990s, alongside what in
Ghana became the breach in the ‘culture of silence’ imposed by the
government of the Provisional National Defence Council’s (PNDC)
saw the emergence of a number of media houses and a keen competition
among them. It did not take long for media moguls seeking to promote
their readership and listening clientele to realise that they could
enhance their readership by feeding the insatiable Ghanaian hunger for
exotic stories with precisely such material, including stories on inordin-
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