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Accra, Ghana – Two firefighters, who were dismissed for pregnancy, were reinstated by the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS).
A women's lawyer told CNN that this decision was a victory for the rule of law and human rights in this country of West Africa.
Thelma Hammond and Grace Fosu were fired in June 2013 and September 2014, respectively, after breaking a decades-old rule prohibiting female firefighters from becoming pregnant during their first three years of employment.
In October 2017, the two women filed a lawsuit against firefighters in what would become the first court case in a gender-based court in Ghana.
In the human rights division of the High Court of Accra, fire department lawyers have argued that intensive training during the first three years of 39 "use could harm the fetus and future mothers". But their reasoning is not established.
In April 2018, after less than a year of judicial proceedings, Judge Anthony Yeboah stated that the settlement, instituted in 1963, was "discriminatory, unjustifiable, illegitimate and illegal".
In his decision, Yeboah stated that the dismissal of Fosu and Hammond was "[an] unjustified institutional interference with their fundamental rights: the right to work and the right not to be discriminated against. "
The judge affirmed that women "had the right to choose when to become pregnant" and ordered the reinstatement of Fosu and Hammond, the payment of all wages and bonuses lost due to their dismissal, as well as a compensation of about $ 9,000 to each of the women "for the inevitable trauma and inconvenience of wrongful dismissal".
But despite the initial court ruling last year and an unsuccessful call in January, the fire services have still not reinstated or compensated the women.
"The court said we should reinstate them so that we implement only what the court said … We reached an agreement between the two parties and it was understood," CNN Ellis Okoe told CNN , spokesperson for GNFS.
It is unclear how many women have already been affected by the regulation, which has since been suppressed by the fire services.
Okoe said the period of the pregnancy ban had been reduced from three years to one month – the first six months of training and six months of probation – in order to "reflect changes over time".
Joseph Whittal, Chairperson of Ghana's Human Rights and Administrative Justice Commission, who provided free legal services in Fosu and Hammond, confirmed that the commission had been contacted to arrange the payment of the fee. 39, compensation ordered by the court.
Whittal applauded their reinstatement, saying, "It's a victory for the rule of law [and] it's a victory for human rights. "
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