Professor Amin Alhassan, the Director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), has called on the media to support and put a spotlight on the Anti-Witchcraft Bill, to facilitate its passage into law.
He said the Bill was currently going through stages of stakeholder engagements, and it was imperative for the media to develop the interest, follow keenly and generate discussions on it.
He called for the support of the media, saying, “Dr Godfred Seidu Jawsaw, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wa East is spearheading the Bill and we must support him”.
Prof Alhassan, who was speaking at a day’s high-profile round table on inclusive Journalism in Accra, said the passage of the Bill into law would criminalise witchcraft accusations and related offenses in the country.
Speaking on the topic, “conflict, migration and minority rights: media perspective on community livelihood,” Prof Alhassan said he was strongly against advocacy against the disabandment of the Gambaga and other witches camps in the country.
He said it was rather imperative for the nation to put in place measures to transform the camps and to provide decent accommodation and life environment for the inmates.
He said, “journalists have the power to frame,” and encouraged them to use that power to re-frame and shape the narratives.
The objective of the discussion was to heighten regional engagement amongst journalists and civil society actors to exchange reporting and counter-narrative on good practices, through the creation of a peacebuilding journalism network.
It was attended by selected media practitioners and civil society organisations from Ghana, Senegal and Sierra Leone, who discussed issues including how the media could serve as a catalyst for peace building in their respective countries and not for engendering conflicts.
The discussion forms part of the on-going “Engaging Media and Minorities to Act for Peace building (EMMAP)” project, which is a two-year intervention that is running from March 2022 to February 2024.
As part of the project, 10 Journalists from Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia participating in the online course were selected to undertake the five-day face-to-face training and field visits to some selected Ghanaian communities that host minority groups.
The purpose of the European Union funded EMMAP programme, is to raise public awareness of the interconnections between conflict, migration, and minority exclusion to help build and consolidate sustainable peace in Ghana, Senegal, and Sierra Leone.
The EMMAP is being coordinated by a Uganda-based Minority Rights Group International (MRGA) and implemented by the Ghana-based Media Platform on Environment and Climate Change (MPEC) and Media Reform Coordination Group (MRCG) of Sierra Leone, NGOs.