A High Court in Accra, Ghana has ordered the government of Ghana to allocate money to the domestic violence support fund according to a report by myjoyonline.
The judge awarded the motion by a private legal practitioner to ensure money is released to provide free medical care for victims of domestic violence. The court gave the government six months to start giving the money, allowing the government fiscal space to factor it in the budget.
Ghana’s Attorney General’s department failed to make an appearance during the proceedings of the case.
The domestic violence fund has not received any funds from the government in the last 10 years since it was created in 2007 when the Domestic Violence Act was passed according to the advocate Martin Kpebu who filed the case.
“The purpose of the fund is also to set up shelters for persons who suffer domestic violence, so if someone suffers domestic violence and it is not appropriate for the person to continue to live in that household, such a person will be taken from the home and put in the shelter, apart from that, the state will also draw from the fund to give training to police and other stakeholders to give training to better increase their capacity immensely to better protect victims of domestic violence”. Said the Human Rights Lawyer, Martin Kpebu
Statistics from the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service indicated that 15,426 cases of sexual and gender-based violence with 14,415 assault cases on women were recorded in 2014.
