Three years after Parliament passed the Domestic Violence bill, gender activists say they are worried about what they say is a lack of action plan to for the application of its provisions. The lead facilitator in the on-going nationwide sensitization on the Act warns that the law will remain only in the books while victims of injustice continue to suffer if government doesn’t act with dispatch. Hilary Gbedemah is also asking the media to play a lead role in pressuring government and its agencies to come out with an action plan to back the law. Luv FM’s Elton John Brobbey reports that the action plan is contained in a Legislative Instrument which was supposed to be passed by Parliament but that has not been done. The Domestic Violence Act, Act 732, requires the government to set up a fund to support victims of domestic violence but that also remains undone. Ms Gbedemah is concerned that state institutions set up to deal with domestic violence issues either lack the resources to function effectively or are not well informed on the issues they are supposed to be dealing with. She wants the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice to take immediate steps to establish family courts in the regions to adjudicate domestic violence cases. She believes that will prevent the current situation where domestic violence cases are mainly settled outside the court system and victims are usually the poorer for it. “If as a society, half of us are being brutalized, number one, is a human rights violation contrary to the instruments we ourselves have signed as a country. Number two, it would impede our development because we are not fully half of the society Number three, we are creating a society in which people may lose their sense of self worth and dignity and once you lose your dignity in the home it will affect the way you relate outside,” she said. Still on the subject, many middle class educated women in the country are suffering domestic abuse despite the perception that they are far removed from it. That’s according to the Coordinator of the National Coalition on Domestic Violence Legislation, Adolf Awuku Bekoe. He said the empowered status of middle class educated women prevents them from reporting abuses they suffer. Over the years the focus of the domestic violence campaign has been on less educated women. But Mr Awuku Bekoe said the campaign has not impacted greatly on the educated women. He explains that these “nouveau riche empowered women” almost never bring to public their situations because of stigmatization. One of such victims told Joy News she has suffered different levels of abuse in the hands of her husband. Ama (not her real name) is one of the hundreds of women in the country who suffer abuses at the hands of their husbands but you will never get to know just by looking at her. Ama is a highly educated woman with a masters degree in Human resources. She works with one of the well respected companies in the country. Married for more than 10 years with two children, she tells us she has been suffering physical, verbal, psychological and emotional abuse from her husband throughout her marriage. She is beaten sometimes, verbally assaulted in front of colleagues, kids and her husband’s friends and colleagues and embarrassed on several occasions. That’s not all, the man almost run over her with his car. Ama is even hesitant to tell us the full extent of her ordeals. Both Ama and her husband come from abusive homes and she doesn’t know what triggers his anger and his moods that result in the violence she suffers. She said for many years, she has been reluctant to report the abuse, fearing stigmatization from family members and friends. But according to her, she has had enough and is filing for divorce. The case is now in court. Source: Joy News/Ghana