The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) in partnership with Women Media and Change (WOMEC) has organized a National Training Workshop for Media Practitioners on Effective use of the Media to Promote the Housing and Land Rights of Women in Ghana.

The one-day workshop which was held at the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel in Accra on May 27, 2010 had 30 participants mostly from the print and electronic media. It was aimed at building the capacity of journalists and media practitioners in Ghana to increase visibility of women’s housing rights in the Ghanaian media.
 

The workshop was in three sessions.
•    Welcome/overview/expectations
•    Presentations/plenary
•    Group discussions

Giving an overview of the workshop, Madam Agnes Kabajuni, Africa Programme Officer of COHRE said her outfit looks deeper into issues that create housing instability for women. She said COHRE also works in partnership with other NGOs to address women’s housing and land rights.
The participants hoped that by the end of the workshop they would:
•    Understand issues concerning women’s housing and land rights
•    Be educated on the legalities surrounding women’s housing and land rights issues in Ghana
•    Know the inhibitions women are confronted with in finding accommodation
•    Learn how the media can make a change in the area
•    Know the cultures that limit women in housing and land matters
Madam Kabajuni made the first presentation. She spoke on “Women’s Housing Rights in International and Regional Human Rights Law”. Madam Kabajuni said women constitute 70% of those living in poverty and called on the media to get involved in raising awareness and in pressing governments to reform existing legislation or legal framework that inhibit on women housing and land rights.
Madam Sylvia Noabgesenu of the Ghana office of COHRE who made the second presentation spoke on “Forced Evictions and its Impact on Women’s Rights to Housing”. She said under international law evictions should not result in rendering individuals homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights.
Madam Noabgesenu added that where those affected are unable to provide for themselves, the state party must take appropriate measures, to ensure that adequate alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land, as the case may be, is made available.
The third presentation was made by Mrs. Charity Binka, Executive Director of WOMEC. She talked on “Effective reporting and visibility of women’s housing rights in the Ghana Media; exploring methodologies and strategies that journalists and media officers should take”. She advised journalists to go round and find out the traditions in our communities that do not favour women’s rights to housing and land. Mrs. Binka also tasked them to popularize days set aside by the world body for the observance of habitat by writing commentaries as well as interrogating issues of women housing and land rights in Ghana.
The plenary session highlighted the Old Fadama incidence of force eviction in which case the people were notified but refused to vacate the premises. Madam Noabgesenu said there should be some level of consultation and negotiation. She added that such evictions do not demand the use of machines like bulldozers but rather there should be guidelines.
The workshop was climaxed by a group discussion session which saw the participants divided into three groups: Group 1, Group 2 and Group 3. Each of the three groups discussed and developed a media strategy on housing and land rights of women in Ghana 2010-2012 and the follow up measures.
Critical conclusions after the session were that the media should:
Have more capacity building workshops to educate them to understand the issues concerning women’s housing and land rights
•    Report from an informed point of view
•    Sustain reportage on the issues of women housing and land rights
•    Use discussions, talk shows to create awareness of the public on the issue
•    Use traditional rulers because they are mediators and custodians of culture and tradition as well as agents of change