Media Urged To Tackle
Human Rights Issues
Kumasi, Dec.8, GNA - A human rights activist has
urged the Media to feature prominently issues on
human rights to ensure that the citizenry are
better informed about their rights.
“They (Media) should be committed to issues on
social inequities, political injustices and
human abuses to further entrench the country’s
infant democracy since democracy rests on
respecting rights and view points of others”,
the human rights advocate, Mr Nick Fobi, said.
He was speaking at day’s workshop on Women and
the Justice System, organised by Journalists for
Human Rights (JHR), a non-governmental
organisation for some selected Media
practitioners in the Ashanti Region in Kumasi on
Wednesday.
The Workshop was on the theme: “Women in the
Justice System of Ghana”.
Participants were taken through topics
including, the peculiar issues women are likely
to bring to the justice system, the challenges
women face in accessing the justice system and
how journalists could report with intelligence
and authority on issues pertaining to women.
Mr Fobi said human rights issues were becoming
increasingly recognised as a pre-condition for
any country’s socio-economic development,
stressing that in view of this, Ghana should
commit resources to improve upon its human
rights record.
He said a recent research conducted by the JHR
indicated that there were still substantial
instances of human rights abuses in Ghana, in
spite of efforts by the government to improve
upon the human rights record.
The Human Rights activist cited police beatings,
and unlawful arrests, widespread violence
against women, meting out of instant justice to
suspected criminals, trafficking of women and
children, as well as religious and ethnic
discrimination as some of the findings they came
out during the research.
Mr Ernest Owusu Dapaah, a Kumasi-based Lawyer,
cautioned investigative journalists to strive to
exhaust all avenues in their work and be
circumspect in their reportage.
“The challenge for journalists today is to
produce stories that matter to people and
reflect the authentic human experience with the
view to ultimately effecting changes”, he said.
GNA
