15 Persons with various forms of disability have been trained to use the STAR-Ghana SMS Platform to engage with officers of the Domestic Violence & Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police and legal experts for the reportage of human rights abuse and the solicitation of legal advise respectively.

The STAR-Ghana SMS Platform is a digital platform that enables trained Citizen representatives (Citizen Rapporteurs) particularly in remote and marginalised communities to open instant dialogues with local government officials or duty bearers via a short message system (SMS).

The training was organized in February 2018 across three regions of Ghana: Greater Accra, Brong Ahafo and the Volta regions. The training forms part of the “Gender Inclusion and Voices on Equality Sustained” (GIVES) Project of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), supported by STAR-Ghana and Funded by the UKAid, DANIDA and the European Union.

The GIVES project adopts a comprehensive human rights perspective to address intra-gender violence prevention. It seeks to contribute towards a more inclusive generation of DOVVSU data, that captures violence offenses against socially excluded groups such as Women living with HIV (WLHIV) and Women and girls living with disabilities.

This will ensure that service mechanisms are more responsive to socially excluded groups at both the national and regional level. Again, the project will enhance access to basic legal support for WLHIV and Women and girls living with disabilities.

 Participants at the training – carefully selected from various disability groups – were sensitized on among other things: The Disability Act, the Rights of the Ghanaian Child, Marriage laws and Intestate Succession in Ghana, the Domestic Violence Act, the Rights of the Ghanaian Woman, Mediation & Counselling, some Legal Ethics and the role of the paralegal.

Based on these learning, participants were taken through the relevance of information sharing, core principles and ethics of reporting, as well as some tit bits of mobile phone security to facilitate an effective process of using their mobile phones to report cases.

Participants can now anonymously report cases of abuse against persons with various forms of disability through text messaging, sent directly to the mobile phones of officers of DOVVSU for response, or to legal experts for legal advise depending on the subject matter.

In attendance were representatives of FIDA, DOVVSU and STAR-Ghana.