Gender Based Violence Among Couples: The Case of Ghanaian Security Officers in Marital Relationship with Migrants

Abstract

The subject of effectively addressing gender-based violence has attracted global attention among governments, scholars, and security experts. However little attention has been given to the topic with regards to the gender-based violence among couples of Ghanaian state security officers and their migrant spouses in Africa. It is this vein that this study focuses essentially in exploring gender-based violence among couples of Ghanaian state security officers and their migrant spouses, with specific reference to the Aflao area. The study is purely qualitative and relies predominantly on literature review for secondary data and primary data from interviews from key informants, particularly migrants and Ghanaian state security officers or experts for data analyses. Major findings from the study reveals that the main causes of GBV among the couples indicated by the respondents include, fault finding attitude, insecurity, cultural norms, alcoholism, lack of commitment, frequent comparisons, frustration, as well as suspicion of infidelity. It was further observed that few of the respondents are going through GBV due to the language barrier and differences in values. The study also pointed out that the forms of GBV between Ghanaian security officers and their immigrant partners which manifest in Ghana include verbal, psychological and physical security violence as obtained from field data. Also, the study reveals that there are some formal and informal channels or mechanisms for seeking redress against GBV. The formal channels include Domestic Violence & Victim Support Unit (DOVSU) and Social Welfare, whilst the informal channels include friends and family members. In relation to the effectiveness of the formal channels for addressing the issues of GBV, it was observed from the study that most of the participants of the study established that they have potentials and prospects of minimizing gender-based violence across the country but are skeptical about their effectiveness. This was observed to be because they have not used these mechanisms before. A couple of the participants who used the mechanisms indicated that they were not satisfied with the service they provided. More so, the study also revealed that, notwithstanding the above positive impacts of the roles played by the channels and mechanisms for addressing or minimizing the issues of GBV between Ghanaian security officers and their immigrant partners, there are some few challenges which militate against their effectiveness in addressing the crisis the Aflao area. Paramount among them include financial constraints, personnel constraints, ineffective/poor collaboration sometimes between the GPS and other key state/community security agencies/stakeholders due to unnecessary competition and politics, corruption, difficulty in obtaining reliable information and economic hardship in the country. The study therefore concludes that there are great prospects for improving effective policing by the GPS through the DOVSU towards addressing gender-based violence across Ghana, if government could take effective measures to tackling or addressing the challenges identified in this study. Towards this end, the study recommends that the government should ensure that the GPS, especially DOVSU, enjoined with the responsibility of tackling gender-based violence cases in Ghana should be adequately financed, well-resourced and equipped since it a major challenge faced by the institutions in providing quality service delivery.