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Beliefs can be useful… if they help. In Ghana, some beliefs are decidedly not helping. In a nod to the persistence of cultural taboos surrounding the natural process of menstruation, many women and girls can’t travel or go to school because a river god decreed… although they haven’t made the decree public… that they may not cross during their normal monthly biological cycle. The River Ofin, a boundary between the Ashanti and Central Regions of Ghana, supposedly has a guardian god who… if you can believe certain regional officials… decreed that women and girls couldn’t cross while menstruating, preventing vital travel and school attendance. Shamima Muslim Alhassan, the UNESCO menstrual hygiene ambassador, noted that the apparently anonymous deity travel directive is a violation of women’s rights and a violation of a child’s right to education:
It seems the gods are really powerful aren’t they? I think that we need to ask for some form of accountability from these gods.
According to the BBC, Kwamena Duncan, the Ghanian Central Regional Minister, indicated that he’d take the matter seriously by speaking to an Ashanti regional minister to find a solution.
Formed in 1946, UNESCO is the UN humanitarian assistance provider for children and mothers in developing countries. It estimates that at least one in ten female students in the region isn’t able to attend school when they menstruate. A recent World Bank report also notes that over 11 million women in Ghana lack appropriate hygiene and sanitation resources. Human rights issues resulting from cultural myths surrounding the biological process of menstruation persist, including in the island nation of Madagascar, where women are taught to avoid bathing during their period, and in rural areas of mountainous Nepal, where menstruating women must sleep in huts away from family.
15 January 2018
Sputnik International
https://sputniknews.com/africa/201801151060751990-myths-surrounding-the-human-body/
Voices from Russia 
Council of Europe Report Includes Data on Destruction of Heritage in Kosovo
Tags: 2004 unrest in Kosovo, Albanians, Albanians in Kosovo, civil unrest, CoE, Council of Europe, diplomacy, diplomatic relations, Kosovar, Kosovo, Kosovo Albanians, National Assembly (Serbia), PACE, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, pogrom, political commentary, politics, Serbia, Serbian Orthodox Church, Strasbourg, UNESCO, UNESCO World Heritage site
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In Strasbourg, Marija Obradović, member of National Assembly delegation and of the Culture Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (CoE) (PACE), said that Serbia couldn’t allow the adoption of a CoE resolution that doesn’t include data on a decade that saw more than 150 Serbian Orthodox churches destroyed in Kosovo. She noted, according to a release from the Serbian National Assembly, “We insisted that the draft report include facts about the destruction of Serbian cultural heritage, especially of those buildings not damaged in the pogrom in Kosovo from March 2004. I informed the members of the committee that 34 Orthodox churches and other cultural and religious buildings were damaged in that event alone”. Obradović remarked that Serbia’s opinion was received well by the other members of the committee, and by the rapporteur, especially considering that more than a few of those buildings had UNESCO protection, and that many were constructed in the Middle Ages, concluding, “The adoption of a resolution on this is expected early next year, and we’ll monitor closely its creation until then”. On Friday, the Committee on Culture, Science, Education, and Media of the PACE discussed a preliminary report on cultural heritage in crisis and post-conflict situations, included in the fourth part of the plenary session.
3 October 2014
B92
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society.php?yyyy=2014&mm=10&dd=03&nav_id=91790