The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has advised families and people to compose wills in order to legitimately state their desires on how to dispose of their estate following death.
Speaking on the Intestate Succession Law (PNDCL 111), Madam Efua Brown Eyeson, a Legal Practitioner, explained that if an individual did not make a will or wills before passing away, the State would be responsible for managing his or her assets.
This is supposed to reduce the emergence of disputes about property sharing among family members.
“When a person dies without leaving a will or wills, his property is split into 16 parts: three for the partner, nine for the children, two for his or her parents, and two for the rest of the family. If there are no children, the partner receives half, while the family receives the other half.”
Madam Eyeson gave the advice at a workshop in Accra on Wednesday to train market men and women as paralegals, which was arranged by the UNFPA in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.
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The paralegals were to provide directives and assistance to merchants and people in their families so that they could get civil, psychosocial, and physical help with a variety of issues such as domestic abuse, succession, gender and sexual related violence, partnerships, forced marriages, and incest.
Kaneshie, Teshie, Dome, and Nima markets were represented.
Mrs. Eyeson advised people to make sure they were lawfully married in order to avoid those issues. “Women who stayed with a man for ten to twenty years without being formally married would not be recognized as wives by the statute and will not be part of the intestate inheritance unless he produces a will,” she clarified.
Mrs Melody Darkey, another Legal Practitioner, said a Ghanaian child earned the freedom to participate in social activities, express an opinion, not to be coerced into marriage, and to be free from torture, humiliating, and abusive punishment, whether or not they were disabled.
She urged parents not to compel their girls into relationships merely because they were pregnant, since this may be damaging to their lives.
Mrs Darkey said that regardless of the circumstances or whether or not there was a divorce, it was the parents’ duty to provide for their children and protect their lives.
She said that under the Children’s Act, parents are required to provide essential support to their children, such as a nutritious diet, and to recognize their rights to maintenance, housing, clothes, and safety from injury.
SOURCE: ATLFMONLINE
