�Provide Police Posts For Refugee Camps�

The Central Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), Mr Ransford Moses Ninson, has said the absence of police posts in the refugee camps in the region is making the work of police officers assigned to such places difficult. �When you even make an arrest, it is difficult for the officers to keep such people,� he said, adding that the Agyeikrom refugee camp needed a police post urgently. Mr Ninson made this known at a follow-up capacity-building workshop organised by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Cape Coast for social workers, police personnel, gender-based organisations and non-governmental organisations. According to him, establishing police posts in the camps would enable the police officers to ensure peace and also maintain law and order in the camps. He expressed worry about the situation, saying, �police officers have been going to the camps to ensure law and order but we don�t have a place for them to rest when they are tired�. Mr Ninson, therefore, appealed to the UNFPA to help the police administration to set up police posts in the camps to give maximum protection to the refugees. He expressed gratitude to the UNFPA for its enormous support in ensuring violence-free communities and challenged the participants to take the workshop seriously. The programme analyst of UNFPA, Ms Bridget Asiamah, said �violence against women is a threat to health and a violation of human rights�, adding that it also carried social and economic costs for women. Ms Asiamah said gender-based violence existed in times of peace, but it was often exacerbated in times of unrest and crisis. �During crisis, women�s bodies often become battlegrounds, and rape is used as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate or disrupt social ties,� she said. She noted that there was the need for zero tolerance for all forms of violence against women and girls, as well as vulnerable men and boys in all situations and especially among populations in humanitarian situations such as with the current refugee situation in the Western, Central and Brong Ahafo regions. Ms Asiamah said the first step of stopping gender-based violence in Ghanaian communities required awareness creation and behavioural change.