Recently, the Speaker of Parliament addressed and rehashed the issue of the Human Rights and Family Values Bill, urging the Supreme Court of Ghana to act swiftly on the Bill so that the President could sign it into law.
There are billboards scattered around asking Ghanaians to #ReadTheBill before it is signed into law because it is important to know what we are signing up for.
The bill was introduced to protect family values and defines such family values in section 19 to “include (a) respect for the sanctity of marriage as a lifelong relationship between a man and a woman, each of whose gender is determined at birth;
(b) the recognition (i) of the family as the basic unit of the Ghanaian society; and (ii) that the ultimate purpose for the role of Government in protecting and advancing the family as the basic unit of society is to safeguard and promote the best interest of children;
(c) the obligation of parents, guardians and teachers to ensure that children and young persons receive special protection against exposure to physical, emotional and moral hazards; and
(d) the recognition in Ghanaian ethnic groups, of ‘gender’ as a social construct to only male and female humans each of whose gender is determined at birth
This definition has implications that reach into the lives and rights of all Ghanaians because in one way or another we belong to a family and we all have values.
The Bill states that if you do anything to undermine these family values, you can go to jail for up to 4 months and pay a fine of GHC 4,800 as well.
This post invites us to consider what the bill means and how it will affect us so that we know what we are signing up for.
Author: Paa Kwesi Asante – a Human Rights Activist
