Journalists have been encouraged to unearth issues affecting women and children for redress.

However, in doing so, they should be cautious of issues concerning human rights so that they do not abuse the rights of persons involved in the issue.

Mr. Abu Dokuwie Alhassan, the Programme Coordinator of Centre for the Alleviation of Poverty, the Environment and Child Support (CAPECS), made the call when he made a presentation on rights-based reporting during a workshop on the “Girl Power Project” for Journalists in Wa.

He said issues on human rights were of high importance, especially when dealing with women and children, and appealed to the Journalists to consider all the human rights issues in their stories in order not to abuse the rights of the persons involved.

Mr. Israel Akroborto, the Acting Regional Director of the Department of Children, said issues affecting women and children have been under-reported and relegated to the background by Journalists and media owners.

He therefore appealed to media owners to dedicate space and airtime to bring these issues to the limelight to draw the attention of stakeholders to them.

This, Mr. Akroborto said, would help change the current predicament that women and children found themselves.

Mr. Mustapha Susolow, the Executive Director of CAPECS, said the workshop was aimed at briefing the Journalists on how far CAPECS had gone with the implementation of the “Girl Power Project”, which was being sponsored by the Dutch Government through Plan Ghana.

They are operating in 50 communities in the Wa West District of Upper West Region and they have so far enrolled a total of 6,600 beneficiaries made up of young girls and young women between the ages of 10 to 18 years and 19 to 24 years, respectively.

Mr. Susolow said they also formed and trained School Management Committees (SMCs) in all the beneficiary schools which hitherto lacked these committees to help ensure quality education delivery.

Mr. Richard Boadu, Plan Ghana Programme Unit Manager for the Upper West Region, said Plan had a vision of ensuring that children lived in a society that respected the rights, responsibilities and privileges of children.

He said Plan had put in lots of interventions which were now beginning to show positive signals indicating that their vision would materialize fully in the near future.

Mr. Boadu also mentioned the Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLs), the European Union (EU) Food Facility, which supports more than 10,000 households in the area of crop production and the construction of irrigation dams as well as livestock projects and scholarship schemes as being undertaken by Plan Ghana.

He said 70% of the beneficiaries of these interventions were women.**