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Mrs. Dela Sowah, the Deputy Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, has said statistics showed that only 4.4 per cent of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) perpetrators in Ghana are prosecuted.

She said despite ratifying various international Human Rights instruments to put in place laws, policies and structures for citizens to seek redress and acquire justice in the courts, many SGBV cases were not convicted and conviction rates continued to be low.

Mrs Sowah said this when she opened  a two- day  stakeholders dialogue on improving justice for victims of Sexual and Gender Based Violence in Ghana at Mankessim on Friday.

The dialogue, being organized by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in partnership with the Danish Development Assistance to Ghana (DANIDA), was on the theme: “Improving justice for victims of Sexual and Gender Base Violence in Ghana”  

The event was to ascertain the impediments in seeking justice for victims of SGBV and make recommendations to strengthen the justice system.

It is also to identify and critically analyze the issues that accounts for the low conviction rates of SGBV cases in the country as well as increasing the gender- sensitivity of officials in the justice system who process gender-based violence cases.

The dialogue brought together judges of the various Family Tribunals, Circuit and Gender-Based Violence Courts, High Court, Senior State Prosecutors and Investigators and Coordinators of the Domestic Violence Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU).

Giving statistics to suport her claim, Mrs Sowah said 1, 547 out of the 15,426 SGBV cases recorded in 2014 went to court with only 160  of them  convicted with 11,705, pending at the various courts and some still remained under investigations.

In 2015, she said, 139 of the 1,291 cases of SGBV sent to the court were convicted with about 10,945 of the reported cases were still pending and others remained under investigations by DOVVSU.

The Deputy Minister described as unacceptable the fact that the high number of the cases which keep increasing in the past five years, were against women

She expressed optimism that participants of the dialogue would come out with strategies for the quick dispensation of justice for sexual and gender-based cases and  help the justices to work together to eliminate SGBV in Ghana.

Justice Hannah Taylor, a High Court Judge, said the reasons for some delayed justice include the uncooperative attitude of some family members during prosecution resulting in the lack of evidence for continuation of the cases.

She said convictions were based on evidence and therefore if the evidence does not warrant conviction, the judge could not convict simply because people wanted conviction and urged victims to report early to the police.

“You must always look at the evidence and see whether prosecution have been able to prove its case to the standard that the law requires before they can procure a conviction, in the absence of evidence you cannot do anything” she stated.

She advised the parents and family members to show much interest in SGBV and not to rush to settle cases out of court, particularly when the victims are young.