In our Ghanaian setting, individuals who have reached a stage where they feel they are old enough to marry, first go into a relationship with the ones they find worthy as life partners. This has over decades become the modus operandi in finding life partners.
Even though such relationships are expected to be romantic, lovely, and adorable, more often than not, most of them are always marked by sorrow, agony, distress and above all violence. Most Ghanaian youth, males and females, who find themselves in such intimate relationships are bedeviled with some degree of violence whilst in the relationships with which scholars refer to as Intimate Partner Violence.
Whereas violence, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) refers to the intentional use of physical force or power against oneself, another person or a group, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm among others, intimate partner violence, on the other hand, is the abuse or aggression that occurs in a romantic relationship. These intimate partners may include spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, dating or sexual partners.
Intimate partner violence has become a nationwide public health issue that has caused many people to meet their untimely death whilst others are in one way or the other deformed or psychologically traumatized with which females form majority of the people subjected to intimate partner violence.
Statistics from WHO has it that, one third or 27% of females aged 15-49 years worldwide who have been in relationships have been subjected to some form of physical or sexual violence by their intimate partners.
Ghana is not an exception. Alangea etal, (2018) stipulate that, the prevalence of intimate partner violence on women in Ghana as of 2018, was 31.7%. The story is not different today because news portals never rest reporting how people have been botched, poisoned, or burnt either with fire or acid by their intimate partners. MyJoyOnline report reveals that, the recent prevalent type of violence intimate partners suffer is burning and this is pathetic.
Any time I chance upon such sad news outlets, the question I cogitate over is that, where lies our sense of humanity and respect for human rights? I get saddened every day about the prevalence of intimate partner violence in Ghana and how no one shows concern regarding the havoc.
What then could possibly be the causes of the alarming issue among most Ghanaian youth? In a vis-à-vis interaction with a female student of the University of Education, Winneba, she reveals that, infidelity is one of the primary causes of most intimate partner violence. Sharing her plight, she unveiled that, she became a victim of such violence when she caught her partner in bed with a different lady.
Also, the inability of partners to have effective communication as well as males’ controlling behavior towards their female partners can result in such violence.
A stop must be put to this inhuman act more especially against women because it causes injuries, psychological trauma, suicidal attempts and in some cases death. It is more dangerous for women who are pregnant.
The 2013 WHO study on health burden associated with violence revealed that, pregnant women who experience intimate partner violence were 16% likely to suffer miscarriage and 41% more likely to have a pre-term birth.
Relationship is a romantic partnership with persons our hearts desire and not war partnership, relationship partners are friends and not wrestling opponents. In view of these, laws on human rights protection must be effective such that persons found culpable in such acts will be brought to book and penalized as law demands.
In addition, safe and healthy relationship skills among adolescents must be included in our educational curriculum and finally, intimate partners must adopt effective communication skills in order to curb violence.
If the above preventive measures are taken into consideration, I have the greatest hope that the issue of intimate partner violence will be a thing of the past in Ghana. It is high time our leaders started paying attention to some of these issues in our country to prevent foreign ridicule and negative perceptions about us.
Say No to Intimate Partner Violence, It Is Deadly.
By
Eric Dindobuo
School of Communication and Media Studies – U.E.W
