The Ghanaian Criminal Code, 1960 (now the Criminal Offence Act) criminalizes unnatural carnal knowledge including sodomy, therefore it is ironic to ask a government to criminalize something which is already a criminal offence. Similarly, the position of the government on this matter has been widely reported including dis-allowing a conference by LGBTIS in Ghana in 2009.

I wish to reiterate that the statements attributed to me which are reported on same sex marriages were responses I gave to a barrage of questions from the journalist in a consultative capacity. I provided a number of options to the questions posed to me. The aspects of the responses (obviously he picked those parts that fitted with the headline he had chosen) which were put out on the internet by the media person do not and are not a definitive position of myself or my organisation on same sex marriages. On this matter, I also drew attention to trends in other African countries or worldwide that allow same sex marriages. I also mentioned the South African situation where the Domestic Violence Law addresses violence within same sex relations. (WiLDAF Ghana recently did an analysis of Domestic violence laws in 7 African countries to support our advocacy in Ghana).

These latter responses were not captured in what the journalist put out. The forum was not on same sex marriages, it was a forum organised by the Centre for Democratic Development (not the Constitution Review Commission) as part of gathering issues on gender equality to present to the Constitution Review Commission. Like advocates in other countries in Africa who have used a constitution review process to push for more gender equality clauses, our interventions on the review follow the same pattern.

Indeed the 21-page document touched on many areas of gender and women's empowerment which advocates believe should be of concern to the Review Commission to advance women's rights. Specifically relating to marriage - my point was that the present Constitution allows customary law and formal statutory law side by side. While customary law allows polygamy, sororate and levirate marriages; there are also have statutes that allow ordinance or monogamous marriages. I also focused on discrimination that women face as widows in times of death where in some cultures they could be married by the deceased husband's brother.

Other areas of my presentation were the need to include in the new Constitution a provision on affirmative action for more women to get into political positions; inclusion of discrimination on the basis of sex; extension of maternity leave from four to 6 months; need for paternity leave; ensuring that the President reported on advancement of gender equality before parliament; the need to ensure that international treaties on human rights become part of Ghana's laws without the dualist approach which requires parliamentary action among many other matters. There were two discussants at the forum who can confirm that this.