March 2013 AfriKids is a Child Rights Organisation working to improve life for Ghana’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged children in a holistic, inclusive and sustainable manner
A Women’s group in Sirigu, in the Upper East Region of Ghana singing about the ‘spirit child’ phenomenon
AFRIKIDS GHANA ON BBC RADIO FOUR On Monday 11th March AfriKids featured on BBC Radio again. Radio 4’s Woman’s hour included a report on how AfriKids, supported by Comic Relief, is tackling the spirit child phenomenon in the Upper East Region of Ghana.
For over a decade AfriKids has been addressing the ritual infanticide in the Upper East Region of Ghana via Operation Sirigu. AfriKids Ghana has been working closely with communities where infanticide took place to both end the practice and address its root causes. Raymond Ayinne, External Affairs Manager at AfriKids Ghana provides reporter Angela Robson with a careful, sensitive insight into this phenomenon. AfriKids Ghana has gradually built trust
with every sector of local society, focusing initially on women’s groups which include mothers who have lost children to the spirit child phenomenon.
In the report listeners hear a women’s group performing songs about spirit children, which is part of the awareness-raising process aimed at bursting the taboos surrounding the spirit child phenomenon. Robson explains “women have been empowered as a result if these programmes [through microfinance and healthcare] and are now far more involved in decision making both for their children and for the community.” Angela Robson asks a group of women in Sirigu: “How have you had the courage, after years, generations of this practice, to now speak out to stop it in the community?” Using
Ray as an interpreter a woman replies: “It is our collective will to protect our rights as women that has made us form a group and try to help each other. Second is the empowerment we have got from the financial support that AfriKids has given us. It has enabled us to be able to take care of the needs of their children”. Ray explains; “they are increasingly able to have a say in what happens in their families. That is the thing that makes them feel solidly behind the fight that their children are protected and are given a better future.” The Kassena Nankana is one of the poorest districts in the country but in the last decade using local people’s convictions and determination this practice has been driven out into the open and comprehensively addressed. Click here to listen again.