COYLIB is not happy with the way and manner some parliamentarians and government officials have decided to denigrate womanhood without acknowledging their roles in the society.

The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, is entitled to interpret things in the manner she chooses. The minister has the right to choose to operate in ignorance, but the facts are always there to clear the mischievous and the deliberate sense to brainwash the populace with unsubstantiated statements.

Linda Scott (principal investigator) and her team at the University of Oxford made an intellectual impact which was evident on their discussion column in the 2008/2009 research in Ghana. The group recognised the complexities of the African girl child education and its challenges. These factors include household chores, inheritance rights, marriage practices, sexual violence and sanitary care methods at puberty, contributes to girls’ absenteeism.

The Oxford researchers provided an in- depth analysis of the impact of providing Sanitary pads to the poor girls in Africa, which later climax the project with preferential in the pads as compared to the traditional methods.

Contrarily, Nana Oye was only interested in the absenteeism aspect without the furtherance to areas of equal importance to the girl child education.
COALITION OF YOUNG LIBERALS (COYLIB) finds it unethical and unprofessional for a minister of state to use only one of the factors to recommend such a policy without delving into the details of the rest. The exposition of irresponsibility and the vilest display of desperation make us doubt her commitment to the gender ministry.
The report suggests, among other things, ‘that distributing either sanitary pads or puberty education through the schools was, at least in Ghana, entirely inappropriate because it contributes to the already high risk of in-social sexual abuse when teachers are mostly males.

Furthermore, the research team stated it explicitly in their project that ‘’we do not know whether the gains achieved would be sustained once the girls became accustomed to the pads. Therefore ,it is essential that further study over a longer period of time to be done before policy decisions committing substantial funding, especially from poor governments, occurs.’’

Ghanaians are in a state of despondency; Poverty under NDC government is worsening and unprecedented, living conditions of the majority of Ghanaians have deteriorated. The constant water crisis, shortage of cements, energy crisis, petroleum and gas increment, growing unemployment, coupled with higher taxes had already culminated the bad situation of citizens to worse conditions.
The limitations of the project by the University of Oxford undermines the credibility of government advisers, officials, parliamentarians, and both the sector ministers for education and gender for pushing through a policy that require merits to maintain. It is also entirely lazy on both ministries not to have furthered the research after Linda Scott and her team left the shores of Ghana 2009.

COALITION OF YOUNG LIBERALS (COYLIB) wonders how an NDC government will contract a loan from World Bank and allocate 15million dollars to distribute sanitary pads whilst majority of Ghanaians wallow in absolute poverty.

Issuing statements that apparently lack basis and substance to supply foreign sanitary pad defeats the purpose of the scholarship because the idea was to siphon money from the state coffers and embezzle the funds.

The World Bank loan is not a gift and Ghanaians are paying interest on it, this call for a robust investment into sex education and other entrenched factors that work against girl child education. Women in Ghana deserve some respect and honour under the NDC government.

God bless Ghana
COALITION OF YOUNG LIBERALS (COYLIB)
SIGNED:
COYLIB LEADERSHIP
(UK, USA, BELGIUM, SWEDEN, CHINA, GHANA, GERMANY)
(Omissions, errors, and typos are COYLIB mistakes)