MP calls on Bawku women to stage sex strike to end ‘ongoing’ conflict

A Member of Parliament is calling on local women to take an extraordinary step to help end this ongoing crisis: a sex strike.

The conflict in Bawku pits the Kusasi and Mamprusi ethnic groups against each other in a decades-long battle rooted in a chieftaincy dispute.

The MP for Guan Constituency, Fred Agbenyo, has urged women in the troubled area to take inspiration from the ancient Greek play Lysistrata, where women declared a sex strike to force their husbands to end wars and return home. The goal here is the same: to pressure men involved in the fighting to lay down their arms and restore peace.

Upper East: Interior Minister Extends Bawku Curfew Hours

In the Greek play, women withheld intimacy from their partners until the wars stopped and peace was achieved. The MP believes this bold tactic could work in Bawku, given the failure of traditional methods to end the violence.

The MP said, “For the men who have declared themselves warlords and insist on fighting, I don’t get it. I think on this platform, I have said it before; it may be an unpopular position, and those who will vilify me have already done so, but it has happened before. I read a Greek play, Lysistrata, and the men would all the time go about fighting wars, and one day a woman got up and said, ‘You know what?’ She called all the women and said they should embark on a sex strike. If their husbands were not going to stop the wars and return home so they could enjoy their family life, they should also advise themselves.”

Military officer shot dead in Bawku

Recent months have seen violent outbreaks, including attacks on schools with the tragic deaths of three students, forcing curfews and military enforcement. The conflict has even spilled over into other parts of Ghana, including Kumasi, raising alarms about wider instability.