Moreover, the literacy gap shrunk only Marginally from 25 percentage
points in 1970 to 23 percentage points in 1995. In 1990, the primary
school enrollment ratio for girls was 69%, whereas he overall primary
school enrollment ration was 77%.
Culture and Human Dignity
Article 15 of the 1992 Constitution provides that the dignity of all person
shall be inviolable. Article 26 also guarantees cultural rights. It further
prohibits customary practices which are degrading, dehumanising or
injurious to the dignity of a person.
A National Commission on Culture (CNC) has been set up to promote a
systematic cultural review. The objective is to ensure the promotion and
enhancement of the positive elements of Ghanaian culture and to
discourage the maintenance of those cultural values and practices which
derogate from the dignity of the individual or which conflict with
internationally-recognized standards of decency.
There is a sustained programme of education aimed at abolishing
obnoxious cultural practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM),
trokosi, maltreatment of persons suspected to be witches (usually
women), and widowhood rites. This Programme is spear-headed by the
CHRAJ, the NCCE and a variety of civil liberty-oriented NGOs such as
International Needs (G1;ana), FIDA, and the 315t December Women's
Movement.
In 1995, Parliament passed a law abolishing FGM in Ghana. The practice
continues nonetheless, and the CHRAJ and various human rights actors
are increasingly pursuing a two-pronged approach of encouraging
prosecution of offenders and the education of the public.
In August 1998, Parliament passed a bill prohibiting customary servitude,
including the infamous trokosi system under which vestal virgins, usually
young girls and women, are held in virtual slavery at fetish shrines in
atonement for the alleged moral transgressions of their parents or other
family members. As with the struggle against FGM, the CHRAJ has been
urging the police and thf• wider society to couple prosecution with public
education in the campaign to combat the trokosi system.