Cape Coast, Aug 13, GNA- The Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs has released 502 million cedis from its share of the HIPC relief fund for distribution to women's groups in the Cape Coast Municipality. Mr Muniru Arafat Nuhu, the Municipal Chief Executive, said this in a speech read for him at a day's seminar on ''Mass Gender Advocacy'' to disseminate knowledge on laws affecting women and promotion of women's rights.

It was organised by the African Women Lawyers Association (AWLA), Ghana, with support from DANIDA. Queenmothers, traders and women's groups attended the seminar.

He said the money has been disbursed to about 1,000 women engaged in petty trading, fish smoking, and cassava processing, and that there was more of such assistance in the offing.

Mr Nuhu said the Assembly is also concerned about the welfare of women and children in the municipality and has, as part of its policy to promote girl's education, earmarked 60 million cedis from its share of the Common Fund, as scholarship to assist clever but needy students, particularly girls, at the Senior Secondary School (SSS) level. He said this year, the assembly has paid 10 million cedis to support the Science Technology and Mathematics Education (STME) clinic for girls in the municipality and that last year, it provided 20 million cedis for the programme.

Ms Edna Kuma, Executive Director of AWLA, Ghana, said her outfit seeks to enhance the legal status of women in Africa through advocacy programmes and lobbies for gender equality through legislative reform and public education.

She said laws dealing with the rights of women, have been simplified in booklets for easy reading and understanding, and that the seminar, would be held in three districts in every region, in order to help address peculiar problems facing women in each region.