AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENTS SUPPORTS CHRI (Centre Spread)

19/12/2008
Story: Mary Mensah
THE Australian government has provided GH¢56,000 to the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) to support a project to protect the rights of arrested persons in Ghana.
The money will be used to produce information booklets on the rights of arrested persons and conduct information and advocacy sessions in five regions of the country.
The project will be implemented in consultation with the Ghana Police Service, the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).
Presenting the money at a short ceremony in Accra, the Australian High Commissioner to Ghana, Mr William Williams, said in 1948 Australia was one of the 47 original signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which gave a global expression to the basic rights and freedoms to which all human beings were entitled.
He said for the past 60 years, Australia had been a leading proponent of the consistent and comprehensive implementation of the declaration.
“In this spirit, we are pleased to be able to support activities to promote human rights in Ghana,” he said, adding that Australia had previously funded a number of projects in the human rights sector which included supporting the rehabilitation of ex-trokosis in the Volta Region.
Mr Williams said the project would be funded under the Australian Human Rights Small Grants Scheme and said 1.5 million Australian dollars would be provided for projects in 19 African countries, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East to promote good governance, gender equality, disability rights and children’s rights and combat human trafficking.
For her part, Nana Oye Lithur, who is in charge of the CHRI Africa Office, said her office started implementing a project on police accountability in 2005, with the ultimate objective to initiate advocacy for reforms in the Ghana Police Service in order to bring the service in line with modern principles of democratic and human rights conscious policing.
She said research previously conducted by the CDD revealed that one of the major issues militating against effective accountability in the Police Service was the fact that many people in Ghana did not know their rights and the avenues for redress when their rights were breached.
Nana Lithur said that lack of awareness culminated in many people’s rights being abused during arrests, saying that called for the need to raise awareness among the citizenry of the general scope of rights of arrested persons.
She expressed her appreciation to the Australian government for providing the funding, which she said would go a long way to create awareness in society.