Ipas President Liz Maguire (center) and Vice President for Programs Mary Luke (bottom row, second from left) pose with a group of Ghanaian queenmothers.”

Ghanaian queenmothers and Ipas representatives

The West African country of Ghana presents unique opportunities and challenges for improving reproductive rights and health. Ghana is a stable and prosperous country compared with other sub-Saharan African nations. It has relatively permissive abortion laws and the resources to provide services to a large portion of the country. But many women are unaware that these services are legal and available, and the population is widely dispersed, so reaching these women remains a logistical challenge.

To help solve this problem, Ipas leadership turned to a group of “queenmothers,” Ghanaian traditional community leaders. Ipas President Liz Maguire and Executive Vice President for Programs Mary Luke met with more than 20 queenmothers from Koforidua, the Eastern Region’s capital, when they visited Ipas’s newest office in Ghana this August. There, Maguire and Luke participated in a community meeting (or “durbar”) to inform the queenmothers about the country’s abortion laws and services, and to learn about local conditions from the queenmothers themselves.  

The tradition of queenmothers dates back to the 1600s, when the Asante people established a kingdom centered in modern-day Ghana. Today, queenmothers and male chiefs share authority over villages throughout Ghana. The two types of leaders have separate spheres of power: Among other duties, queenmothers hold authority over areas relating to women and domestic affairs. The Asante are a matrilineal society, so both chiefs and queenmothers inherit their titles from their mothers.

“Queenmothers’ positions offer them the unique opportunity to talk and educate the community,” Maguire said. “You can’t have behavior change unless you work with these community leaders.”

Providing information that allows women to access services is a top priority in Ghana, Maguire said. Ipas Ghana is working to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality by making abortion services more accessible and available, but “it’s really not enough to train health-care providers. Women also need to know about where they can obtain services,” Maguire said.

Ghana’s law allows abortion in cases of rape and incest, as well as to preserve a woman’s physical or mental health. However, many women in Ghana turn to traditional village healers rather than health centers to receive abortion services, either because they are unaware that abortion services are legal and available, or they previously used healers as health-care providers. These traditional healers often prescribe remedies and concoctions that are unreliable or dangerous. By informing queenmothers, who are respected leaders and trusted sources of knowledge, about Ghana’s abortion laws and the importance of safe and effective medical care, Ipas hopes to reach young women throughout the Eastern Region, Maguire said.

The durbar was also an opportunity for Ipas staff to learn about conditions in the villages of Ghana’s Eastern Region. At the durbar, the queenmothers discussed the negative consequences that unwanted teenage pregnancies bring to their villages: young women expelled from school and adverse reactions to herbal remedies prescribed by local healers. In addition to being knowledgeable, these queenmothers also care enough to get politically involved and have recently formed a NGO to raise awareness about unsafe abortion, HIV and safe motherhood in the Eastern Region.

After the durbar, the queenmothers inducted Maguire as a queenmother herself. As part of the ceremony, the queenmothers “enstooled” Maguire (in the Asante tradition, a stool fills the same role as a throne in Western European tradition) and gave her the title “Nana Ama I,” or “Ipas’s queenmother.”

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