Organizing the Voice and Representation of Queen Mothers in National Policy Dialogue
Bridgewurche Barchisu Mankir, a Paramount Queen mother from the Savannah, addressing an issue during one of the discussion sessions.
Queen Mothers are an important feature of Traditional Leadership in Ghana. They are the female counterparts of male traditional leaders known as Chiefs. Because of their role in community leadership and customary land governance, Traditional Leaders have played an important role in policy dialogue over the years.
Many state agencies and development organizations that need to include Traditional Leaders in their development programing or policy work would usually approach them through their consultative platforms at the National, Regional or Local level. Through those platforms, it is possible to have selected Traditional Leaders to represent a larger constituency of Traditional Leaders to achieve inclusion. However, the channel for identifying and engaging with Traditional Leaders in Ghana has no representation of the Queen Mothers. Membership to those platforms is limited to the male traditional leaders-the Chiefs.
The Queen Mothers have been working towards establishing a consultative platform for organizing the representation and voice of Queen Mothers in Ghana. With consistency and dedication, this effort has paid off.
On June 22, 2021, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MOGCSP) held a national event with Queen Mothers in Ghana to discuss modalities for Addressing Inequalities and Harmful Practices. With support from COLANDEF, the National Executives of the Queen Mothers’ Platform-Ghana, organized its members from all the 16 regions of Ghana to select regional representatives to this event. Harmful practices such as Child trafficking, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Child marriage, Teenage Pregnancy, among others.
The Ministry expressed its commitment to partner with the QMP in executing the national agenda to promote women and children’s rights in Ghana. Other engagements have been planned in the coming months.