GHANA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

(GIMPA) - FACULTY OF LAW

LAW 219B HUMAN RIGHTS LAW II
2022/2023 ACADEMIC YEAR
LEVEL 200 DAY
GROUP A

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS

1. Do you agree that the regime of group rights is a duplication of efforts?

2. Why is the discourse on children’s rights fraught with controversies?
3. Discuss vulnerability in the context of children’s rights?
4. Does CEDAW violate the non-discrimination doctrine?
5. Ama Serwaa completed Kumasi Girls High School in the Ashanti Region of Ghana at the

age of eighteen. She was very brilliant and always emerged first at school. She could,

however, not continue her education due to financial constraints. As the last of sixteen

daughters of Mr. Asamoah she was her father’s favourite. Her parents died in a tragic

accident one fateful afternoon on Valentine’s Day when returning from a funeral at

Goaso. Their car collided with a VIP bus that had lost control. News of her parent’s death

was extremely devastating to Ama Serwaa and her siblings. All sixteen daughters of Mr.

& Mrs. Asamoah were sent to various family members with Ama Serwaa having to stay

with her grandparents. Upon the distribution of her father’s properties, only her male

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cousins were given all the inheritance of her father. This was the custom of persons of the

matrilineal system of inheritance.

Just six months after staying with her grandparents, her grandparents both died from

complications arising from COVID-19. Soon Ama Serwaa was married off to Opanyin

Kwadwo, a wealthy business man. He refused to allow her continue her education so she

had to assist him on his cocoa farm daily under the scorching sun. Ama Serwaa had her

first child when she turned twenty. She brought so much joy to her. Her joy was short-

lived when her husband started to abuse her physically. He would lock her indoors all day

without food and beat her mercilessly.

One day Ama Serwaa had had enough of the ill treatment being meted out to her and run

away from home to the village chief. She narrated her ordeal and to the chief who later

informed the police about the situation. The police assisted in taking her statement but

nothing was done to Opanyin Kwadwo. The Police claimed that since he was a

paramount chief, he could not be arrested. Ama Serwaa later learnt that Opanyin

Kwadwo was a philanthropist who made regular donations of the Police in that

community hence the undue delay in prosecuting him. Her uncle Papa Adjei after

learning about her ordeal, informed his niece, Shine, a law student at GIMPA Law

School about everything. Shine advised her uncle to channel his grievances to CEDAW

since Ghana was a signatory and also since all local remedies had been exhausted.

On 7th March 2023 Papa Adjei lodged a complaint to CEDAW on behalf of Ama

Serwaa.

Papa Adjei afraid of what Opanyin Kwadwo would do if he found out, submitted the

communication on behalf of Ama Serwaa anonymously. Ghana however after much

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 deliberation denounced the Optional Protocol to CEDAW by written notification to the

General-Secretary of the UN and same was received on the 11th of December 2022.

Ama Serwaa is worried. She is unsure of the success of the communication to the

commission on her behalf. Advise her.

6. You have been appointed the new SRC President of the GIMPA School of Law and as

part of the Students’ Week celebrations, you have been invited to speak at the SRC

Conference on the theme “Discrimination Against Women in the field of Employment.”

As an expert in Human Rights Law, outline five obligations Ghana has as a signatory to

the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women

(CEDAW) to eradicate discrimination against women in the field of employment to

ensure equality between both men and women taking cognizance of the definition of

discrimination against women in the aforementioned convention.

The committee to the optional protocol has received reliable information that Nashville a

state party to the CEDAW has been systematically violating the rights set out in the

Convention. Outline the steps the committee will take after receiving complaints of such

violations.

7. When can a communication be considered inadmissible by the CEDAW Committee?

8. Under what circumstance will the committee refuse to consider a communication

presented to it under the optional protocol to CEDAW?

9. What rights does the Disability Convention create?

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