Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/tag/ghana/)
Peggielene Bartels was working as a secretary in Washington, D.C., when she was tapped to be king of her village of Otuam, in Ghana. In this excerpt from “King Peggy” she recalls learning how to be the community’s first female monarch.
The following is excerpted from an essay by Aaron R. Denham in the new book “Risk, Reproduction, and Narratives of Experience.”
Women produce half of the world’s food, earn 10 percent of the world’s income and own less than 1 percent of the world’s property. The U.S. Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation says its anti-poverty efforts aim to change these statistics.
Two female parliamentarians in Ghana reflect on how much harder it is for women to win political campaigns than be appointed to office. Money, inexperience and social bias can all stand in the way.
Liberian refugees in Ghana, mostly women, protested in hopes the U.N. would help them find new homes in Western countries. Now they are in a makeshift camp, fearing mass deportation to a homeland with an 85 percent jobless rate.
Traditional female leaders in Ghana are beginning to open their communal gatherings to discussions of women’s legal rights to abortion. The country has one of the most liberal abortion laws in the continent, but women are dying in ignorance of it.
The University of Ghana is forging a gender advocacy trail in West Africa by setting up a sex-assault crisis center, forming a policy on harassment and improving the campus culture for women. Sixth in a series on higher education in Africa.
In a bustling Ghana marketplace female entrepreneurs borrow small sums from a micro-finance institution. The loans aren’t cheap–annual interest rates are around 36 percent–but a few borrowers explain how the money still helps out.
Female undergrads are still a small minority at Ghana’s University of Mines and Technology. An affirmative action program means their numbers are expanding. Third in a series on higher education in Africa.
Two reports project that the world population will grow younger and more urban, crowded and impoverished. Demographers say that women’s reproductive choices–if supported by their governments–could help avert a population crisis.