MODERNISE OUTMODED WIDOWHOOD RITES ...Akropong women (PAGE 20)

THE Akropong Women’s Ministry, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to the welfare of women in the Akuapem Traditional Area, has presented a petition to the traditional council to either modernise or stop some of the widowhood rites which it considered inimical to women in the area.
The ministry’s president, Miss Mercy Ohene, presented the petition to the Omanhene, Oseadeoyo Addo Dankwa II at a mini durbar at his palace at Akropong.
The petition contained a number of widowhood rites that the ministry considered cruel and dehumanising, and militating against the development of not only women in Akuapem, but also in other parts of the country.
According to the ministry, although it believed in the culture and tradition of the people as laid down by their ancestors, it had taken that course of action since most of the widowhood rites had for the past years inflicted pain on women who should rather be comforted after losing their husbands.
Some of the widowhood rites that the ministry wanted to be stopped were, the provision of 40 pieces each of soap, towels and buckets by widows as burial items for the corpses of their husbands, the sale of a bucket of water at GH¢50 to widows to bath,women again sent to a stream in the early morning to bathe in cold water, resulting in some of the widows contracting pneumonia.
Others were the locking up of widows with the dead bodies of their husbands in a room overnight, filling calabashes with their tears, having their heads shaved, kneeling on stones before the dead bodies of their husbands and detention in a room for three days during which they were only fed with pepper and onions.
  According to the group, the most disgusting of the lot was when the widow together with the children were driven away from their matrimonial home after the death of the husband, losing property jointly acquired with the husband.
The ministry stated that it considered all those rites as outmoded and they traumatised, depressed and impoverished the widows and for that matter, the Okuapehene should as a matter of urgency make a pronouncement that would compel people within his jurisdiction from engaging in what it described as wanton abuse of women’s rights.
The Okuapehene in response, gave the assurance that he would appoint some of the traditional leaders to go into the matter, giving the assurance that outmoded widowhood rites would be done away with.
“One of my predecessors, the late Nana Addo Dankwa I whose name I have taken, believed in human rights and I am following his footsteps so I will do my best so that you enjoy your fundamental human rights”, the Okuapehene stated.