ActionAid Ghana, an NGO on Wednesday launched a baseline report on the Stop Violence Against Girls in School (SVAGS) which provides a basis for measuring and evaluating changes in a girl’s performance in school.

The report identifies perspectives and experiences of girls, boys and key stakeholders in relation to problems of violence, discrimination and gender inequalities and also identifies existing personal, social and material resources for girls to use to contest violence.

It identifies priority concerns to inform decision-making about future research, community intervention and advocacy priorities for girl-friendly environment and behavioural change in communities.

Speaking at the launch, Madam Adwoa Kwateng Kluvitse, Country Director of ActionAid, said the report was the outcome of a five-year multi-country project being implemented in Mozambique, Kenya and Ghana to ensure that by 2013 a legal and policy framework specifically to address Violence Against Girls in School (VAGS) was in place and being implemented.

She said in Ghana, the project was implemented in the Nanumba District, one of the Local Right Programmes of AAG where patriarchy was deeply entrenched and girls and women needed the intervention in 13 schools in 13 communities.

Madam Kwateng Kluvitse said the project was to ensure that VAGS by family members, teachers and peers in Nanumba was reduced by 50 per cent, and increase the enrollment of girls by 30 per cent and decrease drop-out rate by 30 per cent.

"To ensure that by the end of the project 1,075 girls demonstrate the confidence to challenge the future of violence in and around schools, report incidents and create peer support networks, "she added.

Madam Kwateng Kluvitse said girls were violated by boys in school, teachers and men in towns, adding that girls also experienced violence on the way and from school.

She noted that violence against girls knew no race, age, location, class, disability, and its impact especially where girls were forced to see their bodies as an economic asset had devastating impact not only on the girls but also on the life chances of any children she might have.

“It is about changing the value we put on girls' education and girls' right to and in education, about changing the way we raise and chastise our children, especially girls, its about girls embracing the understanding that they have rights and that they have the right and duty to challenge all forms of violence against them.”

Madam Kwateng Kluvitse said it was important for all and sundry to have a change of mindset, attitudes towards the marginalisation of the vulnerable, saying it was important to change power relations, cultures and sometimes tradition.

Mrs Susan Sabaa, Executive Director of Child Research and Resource Centre, said the study was conducted to address the key issues which were the policy and legislative context, patterns of violence, girls education and challenging violence by girls, drawn from a conceptual framework developed and agreed upon by all participating partners.

She said the study revealed that, violence against girls included both structural that is psychological violence and practices that perpetuated unequal gender roles and non-structural that was physical and sexual violence with negative outcomes on girls' education.**