Ghana

Ghana Human Rights

Human Rights Concerns

Following the election that brought in President John Evans Atta Mills to power, Amnesty International presented him human rights agenda articulating the outstanding human rights conditions that will help boost the human rights advances Ghana has made over the past decades.

The areas of urgent concern that Amnesty International included in the human rights agenda for Ghana are:

• Abolition of the death penalty;
• Significant reductions in the severe level of over-crowding in Ghana's prisons and other places of detention;
• Eradicating the widespread violence against women and legislative reforms to ensure equal rights for men and women;
• Stopping and preventing the practice of forced evictions that have deprived hundreds of men, women and children of their homes and, in most cases, livelihoods;
• Ending illegal detention and ensuring prompt and fair trials for the thousands of prisoners awaiting trial — often for periods longer than the maximum sentence prescribed for their alleged offence;
• Putting an end to mob violence, which has led to the killings of dozens of people in recent times;
• Full compliance with Ghana's international and regional human rights obligations and commitments, as explicitly set out in the treaties it has ratified.