News Item

26

Jan, 2020

CODAC WORK TOWARDS THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF QUEEN MOTHERS IN THE UPPER EAST REGION

If there is a culture that has remained ‘’pure and unadulterated’’ over the centuries, it would be the culture of male dominance. In Africa and Ghana in particular, governance is masculine, and very muscular in that sense. Since pre-colonial times, leadership, though uncoordinated at the time, laid heavily on the shoulders of the man. Although there is legal framework around the Queen Mother’s position can be dissected from the general laws around traditional authorities accounted for in the 1992 Constitution of Ghana and the Chieftaincy Act 759 from 2008, where assurance is provided for the Chieftaincy institution and its corresponding Traditional Councils rooted in customary law and tradition (Owusu-Mensah, 2015). In many regions where Queen Mothers and Women Chiefs are present, their authority is limited and they are not respected to the same degree as the male chiefs as they have been excluded from vital decision making platforms such as the Regional and National House of Chiefs and in many cases also at the ‘Council of Elders’ and ‘the Traditional Counsel of Elders’ at the community level.

To address the above problem CODAC took advantage of the government directive for the installation of Queens Mothers by all paramount Chiefs thus advocated and lobbied to ensure that it was implemented. In the Upper East region, CODAC facilitated the inclusion of women in chief council of elders and also enskinment of Eleven (13) Queens’s mothers, 25 divisional and 21 sub divisional Queen mothers. This resulted to the existence of Queen Mothers associations in all traditional councils and chiefs of elders from community, district and regional levels but their authority is limited to inclusion and not participation and they are not respected to the same degree as the male chiefs as they have been excluded from vital decision making platforms such as the Regional and National House of Chiefs and in many cases also at the ‘Council of Elders’ and ‘the Traditional Council of Elders’ at the community level. During these process the custodians to the customs and traditions which have control over the issues that affect and abuse women and girls rights were affectively involve in the in the enskinments of Queen mothers and the inclusion of women in chief council of elders. The objective of these process was to empower the Queen mothers and other identifiably women groups and stakeholders to champion the course of girls and women rights issues at their respective households and communities but was not fully achieved since the women are only included and not actively participating and also not able to champion the rights of girls and women at their various communities a, district and regional level.