Tamale, June 1, GNA - Participants at a Day's stakeholders workshop on gender issues in Tamale has called on development workers to consult traditional authorities always for their support before embarking on their programmes They noted that poor consultations between development workers and traditional authorities had created misunderstanding in some communities thereby defeating the good interventions to address the development and social needs of the people.

The participants made up of chiefs, Assembly Members and representative of women groups, were apprised of information on sexual abuses of women and human rights violations, as well as gender discriminatory practices in the Northern Region.

The Association of Church Development Projects, (ACDEP), a Christian NGO, organised the workshop for 35 stakeholders, including 25 chiefs drawn from the Tamale Metropolis and Tolon-Kumbungu District, to deepen their understanding and seek their support to promote the fight against gender-based discrimination in the region. The forum also offered the participants the opportunity to initiate and promote change within existing traditional structures to create an environment supportive of women's rights.

The chiefs discussed issues on violence against women, forced and early marriages, child fostering and the common carriers (kayayee) issue and pledged to address them in their communities. The participants called on traditional rulers in the region to establish educational endowment funds to support brilliant but needy students to pursue higher education.

"This is one of the surest ways we can reduce poverty, disease and ignorance among the people and enhance the rapid development of the region", they said.

They also appealed to the Assembly Members to collaborate with chiefs to establish voluntary systems to help in the execution of development projects, as well as check indiscipline in the communities. The government should also support the efforts of the chiefs to stem indiscipline and other social vices in the society. The participants urged parents to take keen interest in the education of their children by providing them with their needs and the necessary counselling to prevent them from falling into the hands of social misfits.

On agriculture, the participants appealed to the government to restore subsidies on agricultural inputs and find ready markets for their produce to encourage the youth to take up farming as a profession.

Mr. Alhassan Amadu, Northern Regional Population Officer who spoke on: "The status of women and children in the region", called for the adoption of some of the good cultural practices to help stem the immoral decadence in the society.

He also called for a conscious skills training for school dropouts to make them self-employed to reduce youth unemployment in the country. Mr. Amadu appealed to traditional authorities to help streamline child fostering, early marriages and betrothing of young girls to friends while making efforts to reduce cost of marriage to facilitate marriages among young people.

"These practices have often resulted in the poor preparation of young people into the future and should be discouraged, he said, adding: "High premium should be placed on girl-child education to enhance their livelihoods".

Mr. Robert Akparibo, a Project Officer of ACDEP, said the organisation was a network of Church NGOs dedicated to promoting gender and reproductive health issues such as fighting the non-education of the girl-child, the kayayee menace, domestic violence against women and HIV/AIDS.

He said ACDEP had realised that without the involvement of traditional authorities efforts at addressing these issues would prove futile hence the workshop.