Hajia Alima Mahama, a lawyer and development consultant, has called for financial and material support for single mothers and female food crop cultivators because they constitute the poorest in Ghana.

According to her, it is on the records of the Ghana Living Standards Survey that the poorest in Ghana are households headed by women and food crops farmers who are mainly rural and peri-urban women.

In an interview with Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of a workshop on women rights organised by ActionAid in Accra, Hajia Mahama said their healthcare, children’s education and cash transfers to supplement their paltry income would help them up the ladder of human dignity and prosperity.

The workshop which was attended by 45 persons drawn from Ghana Hairdressers and Beauticians Association, Market Women Association, Commercial Drivers Union, all members of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, was funded by Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.

According Hajia Mahama, government should design policies to help the poor and vulnerable to strengthen the nation’s welfare agenda.

She said the Ghanaian society would lose its peace if social and economic opportunities are not available to all.

“If the poor and the vulnerable are left to grope in their financial and material poverty darkness, their darkness would blight the whole society.”

On the distribution of pads to girls, she proposed that government should rather encourage school authorities by offering them grants to purchase the items and educate girls on the hormonal changes as part of a broad reproduction health module.

She said if government makes the procurement of pads its direct business, the reality of someone taking undue advantage to exploit the system for financial gains cannot be ruled out.

She called on women to reach out and know their rights, privileges and duties in the society in order to enrich the nation’s democracy.

“If majority of the people who are women cannot feel the essence of our democracy then we have a problem,” Hajia Mahama said.