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Meet the first woman to join the Gold Coast Police force

Rosemond Nkansah, the first Ghanaian woman to be enlisted into the Ghana Police Service, then the Gold Coast Police Force, turned 90 recently.

Before her enlistment, Rosemond Nkansah born on January 13, 1930, was a holder of Senior Cambridge and Teacher’s Certificate ‘A’ and taught briefly before joining the police force

Rosemond Nkansah, the first Ghanaian woman to be enlisted into the Ghana Police Service, then the Gold Coast Police Force.

Ghana Police—the history

The British colonial administrators introduced professional policing to the Gold Coast, now Ghana, in 1821.

Before that, policing or maintenance of law and order was  the duty of the traditional authorities, such as the local headsmen and chiefs, who employed unpaid messengers to carry out the executive and judicial functions in their respective communities.

Policing as a profession from its inception in Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) had been a profession reserved for men.

This is because policing in all the former British colonies imitated the British style of policing which was based on the British Victorian Ideology.

According to Ghana Police Service information, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the then Leader of Government Business, saw the need to include women in the police force and gave his approval to the innovation of recruiting women into the force.

Following that decision, the police enlisted 12 female recruits on September 1, 1952, purposely to handle problems and issues affecting women, children and juveniles who were victims of crime, missing or had allegedly engaged in some form of crime.

Rosemond Nkansah, together with 11 other women, was enlisted into the Gold Coast Police Force on September 1, 1952, at 22 years.

Retirement

COP Donkor (red) said it was on record that during the time of the first 12 women in the service, they were barred from marrying or getting  pregnant. They had the option  to resign if they wanted to go contrary to the directive.

In an era when women take pride in marriage and children, some policewomen who joined the force after the first 12 resigned.

After serving for some years, Rosemond Nkansah decided to marry so she resigned, but it was not without a stinger to the government, “but thinking that women were not being fairly treated like their male counterparts who were allowed to marry and bear children, she decided to do something about it before leaving”.

Before her resignation, Rosemond Nkansah petitioned the administration, and the clause were removed. It opened the door to  allow women in the service to marry and bear children. It resulted in  the reinstatement of  those who had resigned to start their families.

After her resignation, as a police officer, she went back to the teaching profession and taught at St John’s Grammar School from 1961 to 1964.

Rosemond Nkansah, the first Ghanaian woman to be enlisted into the Ghana Police Service, then the Gold Coast Police Force.

Thereafter, Rosemond Nkansah joined the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) in 1965 and was in charge of school broadcasting programmes for a year.

She retired and became a full-time housewife trading in building materials until she retired from active service in 1999, and devoted her time to writing books, translating words in her book Octagon into both foreign and local languages.

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