Offices of the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU), and a staff clinic complex for the Volta Regional Command of the Ghana Police Service has been inaugurated in Ho.

The United Nation Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) refurbished and equipped the DOVVSU block at 30,000 dollars while the clinic complex cost of 527 million cedis (Gh¢527, 000).

The basement of the clinic complex has apartments including those for special duty officers of the Regional Task Force who could be moved to crime scenes within minutes at any time of the day.

Ms Mari Simonen, UNFPA Deputy Executive Director at Headquarter in the US, inaugurated the DOVVSU block and commended government for treating gender issues and rights of women and children as priorities.

She also praised government for "establishing legislative mechanisms which provide the platform for actions towards elimination of all forms of violence from the society".

Ms Simonen said many women and girls continued to be threatened by domestic violence and abuse in their own homes and communities and sometimes in the workplace.

She said the endurance of all forms of abuse by women and children cut across lines of income, social status and culture.

Mr Makane Kane, UNFPA Representative in Ghana, said the collaboration between his organization and the Ghana Police Service in the region was expected to reverse the rising incidence of gender-based and domestic violence in society.

He said under the current UNFPA Programme of Assistance to Ghana (CP5, 2006-2010) the organization would support efforts to develop and strengthen the requisite institutional capacity in the gender equality area of work.

"We are supporting the DOVVSU/Ghana Police Service expansion strategy, to bring services closer to the point of need in the district and sub-district levels, and for the effective management and prosecution of cases of gender-based and domestic violence in the country," Mr Kane said.

The Police Administration established DOVVSU, formerly called the Women and Juvenile Unit (WAJU) in October 1998 in response to the increasing number of cases involving abuse in domestic relationship, especially abuse against women and children and opened an office in Ho in June 2002.

Mrs Elizabeth Mills-Robertson, Deputy Inspector-General Police (IGP) in charge of Administration, said the office and workshops would ginger officers to "work effectively and efficiently to ensure that domestic violence and gender based violence is brought to the barest minimum in the region".

Ms Rita Narh, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) in charge of DOVVSU in the region, said 526 cases were listed under domestic violence between June 2006 and June 2007.

She said non-maintenance of children, defilement and assault were on top of the list and that it appeared people were ignorant of the "age factor and consent" in cases of defilement.

Ms Narh said as a result suspects boldly proclaimed the sexually abused girls mainly above 12 years as their girlfriends and even mentioned the number of times they had gone to bed with them.

She said it was as result of advocacy programmes in the district that the strange practice in some cultures for men to sleep with their sisters before giving them out in marriage was encountered in the Nkwanta District.

Dr Laude Mensah, a Medical Practioner at the Paediatric Unit of the Volta Regional Hospital, said the harm done sexually to under age girls and even women could be devastating and would affect their lives forever.

He said pleas by families of the miscreants who engage in such acts for settlement at home should be discouraged.

Source: GNA