Women suffer from forced eviction

Women suffer from forced eviction
The Ghanaian Times; Tuesday, June 15, 2010; Page 22 (Regional News)
No author indicated

A human right advocate on Women and Housing for Africa has painted a pathetic picture of how women and children suffer force eviction either by individual landlords, groups and government.

“Women spend their time in slums, work, care for children and domestic chore; yet they are more affected by poor conditions and threats of evictions,” Ms Agnes Kabajuni, said at a national training workshop for media practitioners on the effective use of the media to promote housing and land rights of women in Ghana.

It was organized by the Centre on Housing Rights and Eviction (COHRE) in partnership with Women, Media and Change (WOMEC), an NGO.

About 40 participants drawn from the print and electronic media attended the workshop.

Ms Kabajuni expressed concern about how women struggles to own a house or land property since most inheritances were owned by men who were either husbands, uncles or brother and did not have anywhere to go when forcibly evicted.

She said women constituted most of the slum dwellers but were inadequately house globally.

Ms Kabajuni noted that most African women found on the streets in rural areas were widows who had been thrown out of their husbands’ houses by either a landlord because the women could not afford the rent or by relatives of the husband who thought it was illegal for women to own houses.

She envisaged equal ownership, access and control of housing between men and women across the globe for people to live in peace, security and dignity, adding, “Housing is a right for everyone, everywhere.”

Ms Sylvia Noagbesenu, a COHRE officer indicated that all persons who undertake evictions were to be properly identified and evictions should not be undertaken particularly during bad weather or at night.

She said women experience rape, sexual assault before, during, after forced eviction, battering with poor living conditions.