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Domestic Violence In Ghana: The Open Secret, Nancy Chi Cantalupo, Lisa Vollendorf Martin, Kay Pak, Sue Shin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This report discusses the findings of a Georgetown Law International Women’s Human Rights Clinic fact-finding team that traveled to Ghana, Africa in March 2003 to investigate domestic violence. The report reviews the contours of the domestic violence problem in Ghana and outlines the ways in which Ghanaian law and procedure was insufficiently addressing the problem at the time. Its chief findings include that the Ghanaian laws existing in 2003 inadequately punished perpetrators and protected victims of domestic violence and that court and police enforcement of the existing law was lacking, including because the government was allowing the removal of domestic …