Thelma Hammond and Grace Fosu were fired in June 2013 and September 2014, respectively, after violating a decades-old rule prohibiting women firefighters from becoming pregnant within their first three years of employment.
In October 2017, the two women sued the fire service in what would become Ghana’s first successful gender discrimination court case.
In the Human Rights Division of the Accra High Court, lawyers for the fire service argued that vigorous training during the first three years of employment may “adversely affect the fetus and the would-be mothers.” But their reasoning didn’t stand up.
In April 2018, after less than a year of court proceedings, Justice Anthony Yeboah declared the regulation, instituted in 1963, was “discriminatory in effect, unjustifiable, illegitimate and illegal.”
In his ruling, Yeboah said the dismissal of Fosu and Hammond was “[an] unwarranted, institutional onslaught on their fundamental human rights — right to work and freedom from discrimination.”
Source: Women dismissed for getting pregnant get their jobs back
