Commentary on Ghana’s Domestic Violence Act, survivor protection, and public financing.                                                                           

Imagine your daughter calls you tonight. Not somebody else’s daughter, but yours. The child you raised, educated, prayed over, advised and tried your best to prepare for life. You taught her to respect herself, choose carefully, work hard, build a future and make good decisions. Now she tells you that the person she shares a home with has assaulted her.

Or imagine it is your son. He tells you in a voice you barely recognize that the person he lives with has been beating him, threatening him, humiliating him, controlling him financially or slowly destroying him psychologically. Perhaps he has said nothing for months because he already knows what some people will say. “How can a woman beat you?” “You are a man.” “Handle your home.” He has been suffering, but shame has convinced him that silence is safer than asking for help.

What would you tell either of them? You would probably say, “Report it.”

That sounds simple because Ghana has a Domestic Violence Act. Ghana has the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit of the Ghana Police Service, commonly known as DOVVSU. Ghana has courts and a Domestic Violence Secretariat. We have a Domestic Violence Fund. We have social welfare officers, health facilities and organizations working in the field. We even have a One-Stop Centre in Accra intended to bring some of those services together.

So, report it. But then comes the question that tells us whether our laws are working in the lives of ordinary people or are merely beautifully written pieces of legislation: What happens after the victim reports?

That is where this conversation must begin.

The Domestic Violence Act, 2007 (Act 732) is not an empty law. It gives important protections to victims. It recognizes that domestic violence goes beyond physical assault and can include sexual, economic, emotional, verbal and psychological abuse.

It places responsibilities on the police when receiving complaints. Police are supposed to assist victims to obtain medical treatment where necessary, help them reach places of safety, help preserve evidence and inform them about available rights and services.

Most significantly, Section 8 under subsection (1) (c) provides that a domestic violence victim assisted by the police to obtain medical treatment is entitled to free medical treatment from the State.

Read that again carefully: free medical treatment from the State.

Now place the law on one side of the table and the lived experience of victims on the other. What happens when a woman who has just been assaulted is told she must find money for something associated with her medical examination?

What happens when she needs transportation from one institution to another? What happens when she needs copies of documents, repeated trips to a police station or court, medication, temporary accommodation, food for herself and her children or simply money to get away from the person who has harmed her?

What happens when an administrative process that looks small to someone sitting behind a desk becomes an impossible financial barrier for someone who left home with nothing but the clothes she was wearing?

This is why we have to stop discussing domestic violence only as a legal issue. It is also a financing issue. A right that exists in legislation but becomes inaccessible because a victim cannot afford the process is not yet a fully functioning right.

This is especially important because many victims are already fighting an internal battle before they ever reach a police station. Some have no support system.

Some have parents who tell them to return to the marriage because leaving would bring embarrassment to the family. Some are financially dependent on the person abusing them.

Some have children and do not know where they will sleep if they leave. Some belong to religious or social environments where endurance has been confused with virtue.

Some are afraid nobody will believe them. Some fear retaliation. Others know that reporting the abuse could expose details of their private lives to relatives, neighbors, employers and an entire community.

And many simply remain silent.

The 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey gives us reason to take that silence seriously. About one-third of Ghanaian women aged 15 to 49 reported having experienced physical violence since age 15, while 14 percent reported having experienced sexual violence.

Among ever-partnered women, more than one-third had experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence by a current or most recent husband or intimate partner.

Perhaps one of the most troubling findings is that among women who had experienced physical or sexual violence, 51 percent had never sought help and had never told anyone.

That means the cases reaching DOVVSU are not the whole story. Police statistics can tell us something about people who enter the formal system.

They cannot tell us about every woman sitting quietly in a bedroom trying to hide swelling before going to work the next morning. They cannot count every child who has learned to recognize the sound of an angry parent’s footsteps.

They cannot automatically count the man who covers scratches with a long-sleeved shirt because he is afraid his friends will laugh if they know what is happening at home.

There is a hidden Ghana living behind the reported Ghana.

That is why stigma cannot be treated as a side issue. Stigma is part of the infrastructure that allows abuse to continue.

When we ridicule male victims, blame female victims, ask what someone did to “provoke” a beating, pressure couples to stay together at all costs or treat family violence as something outsiders should never interfere with, we are helping to build the silence in which abuse survives.

And after a victim finally finds the courage to leave that silence, the State must be careful not to replace one form of trauma with another.

DOVVSU itself says its services are intended to be free, that victims and their families should be treated with respect and courtesy, and that the unit should connect survivors with medical, psychological and social support. The very history of DOVVSU also reminds us that this is not solely a women’s issue.

The former Women and Juvenile Unit was renamed partly because men experiencing domestic violence were reluctant to approach an institution they perceived as serving only women and children.

Women and children remain disproportionately vulnerable and must remain central to the national response. Recognizing that reality does not require us to erase men who are abused. A serious protection system should be capable of holding both truths at the same time.

If your daughter is being beaten, she deserves protection. If your son is being assaulted, threatened, controlled or psychologically abused, he deserves protection too. Neither should have to prove that they look enough like society’s idea of a victim before somebody takes them seriously.

The question for Ghana, therefore, is not whether we have institutions. We do. The question is whether those institutions have been given enough resources, personnel, authority and geographical reach to deliver what we tell citizens they are entitled to receive.

I am therefore grateful to ACEPA and Global Affairs Canada for the opportunity provided through the Inclusive Legislatures for Gender-Responsive Policies (ILGRP) initiative to participate in these conversations.

Spaces like these matter because they allow us to look beyond the existence of legislation and examine whether our laws are being translated into meaningful change in people’s lives. But the value of these conversations should not end in the meeting room.

They should make us more willing to ask difficult questions about implementation, financing, accountability and the experiences of the people these laws are supposed to serve.

That question has stayed with me. A country can pass progressive legislation, hold consultations, establish institutions and make commitments, but implementation ultimately happens in the life of an ordinary person. It happens when a woman walks into a police station after being assaulted.

It happens when someone needs a medical examination but does not have money. It happens when a survivor needs somewhere safe to sleep, when a social worker needs transportation to follow up on a case, or when someone needs legal assistance but cannot afford it. If the resources do not reach that point, then we have to be willing to ask where the chain is breaking.

My concern about this is not theoretical. Through my participation in one of the women’s organizations working groups under the African Centre for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA), I have had the opportunity to engage in discussions around three pieces of legislation that matter to me: the Domestic Violence Act, the Land Act and the Affirmative Action Act.

Looking at these laws alongside the budgets and resources intended to support their implementation has forced me to think beyond what legislation says on paper and ask a more difficult question: Are the resources actually reaching the people the laws were created to protect?

That brings us to the money.

The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection administers some of Ghana’s largest social programs. School Feeding and the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty program, LEAP, are important interventions. Children should be fed. Extremely poor households need support. This is not an argument for taking food away from schoolchildren or cash away from vulnerable families.

It is an argument about what we call social protection.

In 2025, the Ministry’s total budget was approximately 3.2 billion Ghana Cedis. Yet the Government of Ghana allocation recorded for the Domestic Violence Office was only 337,500 Ghana Cedis. The office was also programmed to receive 1.5 million Ghana Cedis in donor funding, bringing its total planned funding to approximately 1.84 million Ghana Cedis.

In other words, the vast majority of the programmed funding for that office that year depended on donors rather than the Government of Ghana.

That should concern us even if every pesewa of donor funding was well intentioned and properly spent. Domestic violence in Ghana is not a foreign problem. Act 732 is not a foreign law. A Ghanaian woman being assaulted in a Ghanaian home is not someone else’s citizen. A Ghanaian child requiring a safe place after violence is not someone else’s responsibility.

Development partners can support us, and we should appreciate genuine support. But there is something uncomfortable about a country depending heavily on outside funding to fulfill rights that its own Parliament has established in law.

What happens when donor priorities change? What happens when one program cycle ends? What happens when a foreign government changes policy? What happens when money is redirected to another crisis in another country? Do Ghanaian victims simply wait?

This is where sovereignty has to mean more than flags and speeches. One of the clearest expressions of sovereignty is the ability of a country to protect its own people.

The 2026 budget again forces uncomfortable questions. Ghana’s Ministry of Finance documents show an allocation of 1 million Ghana Cedis to the Domestic Violence Fund in the original 2026 budget table, while subsequent figures used in current budget comparisons place the amount at approximately 1.17 million Ghana Cedis. The Ministry’s overall resources are counted in billions.

Whatever explanation exists for the precise revised figure, the larger issue remains unchanged: we are discussing a national fund for domestic violence in terms of roughly one million cedis. For the entire country.

The argument should not simply be that the number looks small. Government should tell us what that amount is expected to accomplish. How many victims is it calculated to support? How much is earmarked for shelters? How much for emergency accommodation?

How much for transportation? How much for medical support? How much for psychological services? How much for legal assistance? How much for reintegration? How much for public education? How much reaches the regions? How much reaches districts? How much actually reaches an individual survivor?

And there is another distinction citizens have every right to ask about: budgeted money is not the same as released money, and released money is not necessarily the same as money that reaches the person for whom the program exists.

A budget line can look reassuring on paper. That does not tell the woman sitting in a police station on a Friday evening whether there is somewhere safe for her to sleep.

This is why government should publish, in plain language, how much money was budgeted for the Domestic Violence Fund, how much has been released, when it was released, how much has been spent and what the money purchased.

As of September 10, 2026, the public deserves a clear accounting of the 2026 position. Transparency should not require citizens to become forensic accountants searching through dozens of government PDFs.

The Ministry of Finance has already published the 2026 Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review. The logical next question is whether the domestic violence allocation translated into timely cash releases and measurable services during the year. If it did, government should show us. If it did not, government should explain why.

This is not an accusation. It is a request for accountability.

Then there is the One-Stop Centre in Accra.

The idea behind it makes sense. Survivors should not have to tell their traumatic story repeatedly to five different institutions while traveling across the city searching for services.

The Accra facility brings together services including a clinic and laboratory, courts, shelter-related assistance, social welfare and psychological support. DOVVSU reported in late 2025 that clinic and laboratory services at the facility were being provided free to survivors. In February 2026, a therapeutic garden was also inaugurated at the Centre to support counseling and recovery.

Those are positive developments and they should be acknowledged. But a good service in Accra creates another question rather than ending the conversation.

What happens to the woman in Ho? What happens to the girl in Wa? The mother in Bolgatanga? The victim in a village outside Tamale?

The man in Keta? The teenager in the Western North Region? The woman who does not have money to travel to Accra, does not know anyone in Accra and cannot simply disappear from her job and children for several days?

A national law cannot have an Accra address.

The same quality of protection should not become geographically dependent. One-stop services should ultimately be part of a national pathway in which every region can provide, or quickly access, medical care, safe accommodation, trained investigators, social welfare support, psychological care and legal protection without requiring survivors to undertake another exhausting journey simply to receive services the law already promises.

This also means we must talk about frontline workers with some fairness. It is easy to blame an officer at a desk.

Sometimes that officer may indeed behave badly, dismiss a victim or communicate without the sensitivity the situation requires, and that must be addressed through training, supervision and accountability. But there are also police officers, social workers, health workers, lawyers and counselors trying to serve people inside systems that may themselves be under-resourced.

We should therefore ask two questions at the same time: Is the victim being treated properly, and has the worker been given what is necessary to treat the victim properly?

A social worker without transportation cannot magically conduct every home visit. A shelter without beds cannot accommodate an unlimited number of people. A counselor overwhelmed by cases cannot provide meaningful therapy to everyone. A DOVVSU officer cannot build a national victim-support system using commitment alone.

Good people cannot permanently compensate for weak systems.

And that is one of the greatest dangers in social protection. We become accustomed to celebrating people who “go above and beyond” until going above and beyond becomes the unofficial financing mechanism of the State. Someone uses their own fuel.

Someone calls a friend. Someone persuades an NGO to help. Someone contributes money personally. Someone knows somebody at the hospital.

The victim survives because somebody cared enough to bend the system. But what happens to the victim who meets nobody willing or able to bend it?

That is why this conversation cannot remain behind desks. Those preparing budgets may finish work and go home. Those approving releases may finish a meeting and move to the next agenda item.

Those of us writing articles may eventually close our laptops. The person being abused still has to go home.

That is the lens through which the Domestic Violence Act must be evaluated. Not only how many workshops were held. Not only how many stakeholders were engaged. Not only how many people were sensitized. But what happened when a frightened human being asked Ghana for help?

Was the person believed? Was the person safe that night? Was medical treatment actually free? Was evidence properly collected? Was the perpetrator investigated? Was counseling available? Was there somewhere to stay? Were children protected? Could the victim continue working?

Was there legal assistance? Did the case move through court? Did somebody follow up three months later? Did the person rebuild a life?

That is what successful implementation looks like.

This should matter to all of us because none of us knows what life will bring. Parents can raise children well and still watch them enter harmful relationships. A woman can be educated, financially independent and careful and still encounter an abusive partner.

A man can be responsible, loving and respected in his community and still become a victim inside his home. Someone can marry a person who appears kind and later discover something very different. Mental health can deteriorate. Financial pressures can intensify.

Addiction can enter a household. Jealousy can become control. Control can become violence. People change. Circumstances change.

We are not God. We do not know how the cards will be dealt. That is precisely why civilized societies build institutions. We do not build them because every citizen will need them. We build them because any citizen might.

So imagine again that the telephone rings tonight. Imagine it is your daughter. Imagine it is your son. Imagine you did everything you believed a parent was supposed to do, and now your child is telling you, through tears, that home is no longer safe.

Would GH¢1 million for a national fund still sound sufficient to you? Would you be satisfied hearing that there is a beautiful law? Would you tell your child to wait until the next budget year? Would you accept that the nearest comprehensive service is several hours away?

Would you be comfortable being told that an institution has no vehicle, no shelter space, no counselor available or no funds? Would you tell your child that the State has priorities?

This is not a question for one political party. Domestic violence did not begin with the current government, and it will not disappear with the next election. Governments have changed since Act 732 was passed in 2007. The obligation has remained.

Almost two decades later, Ghana should be asking whether the architecture we created is adequately funded, nationally accessible and functioning as intended.

We need the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Ministry of Finance, Ghana Police Service, Ghana Health Service, Judicial Service, local government authorities and Parliament to look beyond expenditure lines and examine the journey of the victim from beginning to end.

Who owns that journey? Who pays at every stage? Where does responsibility change hands? Where are victims dropping out? Which regions lack services? What costs are victims still paying that the law says they should not have to pay? Where are the shelters?

How many beds exist? What is the average time between reporting and receiving medical assistance? How many cases reach prosecution? How many protection orders are issued? How many survivors receive counseling? How many return to unsafe homes because there is nowhere else to go?

And perhaps most importantly, we need victims themselves at the table. Not merely institutions speaking about them.

Ask survivors what happened after they reported. Ask those who abandoned their cases why they stopped. Ask women who never reported what they feared.

Ask male victims what prevented them from seeking help. Ask frontline officers what resources they lack. Ask social workers what would make them more effective. Ask doctors where implementation of free treatment breaks down.

Then build the budget around what the evidence says people actually need.

Because Ghana does not need another conversation about how seriously we take domestic violence. We need to demonstrate how seriously we take it.

A country tells us what it values not only through the laws it passes but through the money, people and institutions it puts behind those laws.

Act 732 contains a promise. The promise is that when violence enters a Ghanaian home, the victim has somewhere to turn.

The next stage of our national development must be making sure that promise works whether the victim is rich or poor, male or female, living in Accra or far from it, surrounded by family or completely alone.

Our laws should not become privileges available mainly to people who can afford to navigate them. Our protection system should not depend on whether a survivor knows somebody. And the safety of Ghanaian citizens should never depend primarily on whether an international donor has included Ghana in this year’s funding cycle.

We can appreciate development partners while still accepting that this responsibility is ours. As Africans, and specifically as Ghanaians, we must ask ourselves a difficult question: If we will not adequately finance the protection of our own people, who exactly are we waiting for to do it?

Government should take another look at the Domestic Violence Fund. Parliament, The Ministry of Finance, The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection should take another look. DOVVSU, Health, Social Welfare and the Judicial Service should sit around the same table and follow a victim’s journey from the first report through safety, medical care, investigation, prosecution, rehabilitation and reintegration.

Then tell the country what that journey actually costs. Fund it. Track it. Publish the results. And hold the system accountable when it fails.

Because one day the person asking for help may not be a statistic in somebody’s presentation. It may be someone whose number is saved in your phone as Daughter. It may be your Son. It may be your sister, brother, mother, father, colleague or friend. It may even be you.

Ghana has already written the promise into law. After almost twenty years, the question is no longer whether we believe domestic violence is wrong. The question is whether we are prepared to pay the real cost of protecting people from it.

It is time to fund the promise.