Islam and Gender Violence: Exploring Spousal Abuse in Kumasi Zongo

Abstract

The discourse on gender-based violence has taken a central stage in global advocacy on gender equality, human rights, affirmative action, and other issues pertaining to gender discrimination. Gender-based violence (GBV), or Sexual and Gender-based violence (SGBV) is a harmful act of sexual, physical, psychological, mental, and emotional abuse that is perpetrated against a person’s will. It is usually based on certain socially ascribed differences between males and females. Although men also experience gender-based violence, women and girls are mostly victims of socio-political, cultural, and religious factors that perpetuate direct and indirect experiences of violence. Globally, one in three women will experience physical or sexual abuse in their lives. In Ghana, the manifestation of GBV cuts across socio-political and cultural dimensions. It is indicated that 31.9% of Ghanaian women face at least one form of domestic violence: physical, economic, psychological, social, or sexual. Recent studies have established that structures of domination and subordination are present in religious narratives of marriage as an institution. Other studies also show the link between religious affiliation and variations in intimate partner abuse. In the Zongos, some women in marriages are forced to condone spousal abuse with consolatory statements like “Awure Ibaada Ney” (Marriage is an act of worship) and ‘Awure Ba soyyaya bane hankuri ney” meaning that marriage is not always about love but patience, among other consoling words. These socio-religious narratives and words of consolation form the normalized feature of spousal relations in Ghana’s Zongos. Thus, this research explores the link between the practice of Islam and IPV in Ghana’s Zongos using a qualitative approach. The study further examines empirical cases of spousal relations and violence, the role of Islam and family in IPV mediation, and how women victims interact with IPV mediators such as DOVVSU and the Imams who mediate spousal violence according to Quranic teachings in the Zongos of Kumasi.