Rewriting the Law: Sheila Minkah-Premo on Gender Justice in Ghana

Transcript excerpts from the video:

5:01-6:24

“When I became a lawyer, one thing which really happened which impacted what I'm doing now was, at that time, the key women lawyers group in Ghana was FIDA Ghana, the Federation of Women Lawyers. This was 1989. So FIDA Ghana had a legal aid center, which was located very close to where my office was, because where I was, my firm was also in Adabraka. I think even before I joined the firm, FIDA invited the few female lawyers who had graduated in that year. We were not that many, about 12 or 13 out of a class of about 70 or so. So they invited us to what they call a tea party. It was a practice they had to invite the female lawyers, tell them, ‘Yes, you've now qualified as a lawyer, and that's going to enable you to earn money, but you should also give a bit of yourself to help people who are less fortunate than you.’

I've always had those kind of compassions. My grandmother, the Presbyterian women's minister that I grew up with, instilled a lot of principles in me. You have to help other people less fortunate than yourself, principles of integrity, et cetera. So I caught on. So in my year, I remember I was the only one who went back. So basically, FIDA, it was like a part-time thing. So we would volunteer time. They had a legal aid clinic where poor women who can't afford legal services would come, women and children. And I got really passionate about it, that kind of work.”

12:01-13:42

“So the Georgetown experience was interesting. Then I did the [ATLAS] internship for six months, because that was the package that we had at this institute. And in 1995, which is when I finished, because the LLM itself, '94 to May '95, did the internship. It was in the middle of the Beijing conference. So, the lecturers, the LAWA program was part of the fellowship program, called the Women Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program. So they had developed the African component called the Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa program, LAWA for short. They got funding to take us along to the Beijing conference in China. Yes. So that was really interesting. There were six, two from Ghana, two from Tanzania, and then two from Uganda … And for me, where I also worked there, the Institute for Women Law and Development, they had been given an assignment to work. At that time, the UN had appointed what they call a Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women to do a scan on how countries are addressing violence against women and to bring a report. So she used the IWLD, Institute for Women Law and Development. So that's the project I worked on. Very passionate[ly].”

59:21-59:59

"So for me, once I'm able to hand over the baton to the next generation, then I'm happy that whatever knowledge I acquired, I'm not keeping it to myself. Yeah. So the AAI has been of immense benefits. Equipped me to be able to influence policy to make a change in my country, and even some of the changes beyond our country, other countries as well in there. Sometimes, your memory remembers some little channels all over the place, and the impact we've had is immense. So we are very thankful to them for the opportunity they gave us in the 1990s, and we've not wasted the knowledge that was acquired. We continue to share, or we'll continue sharing. We wish everybody well.”