Agnes Naa Momo Lartey is the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection
Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, has urged the country’s security services to factor gender differences into future recruitment processes.
Her concerns follow the deadly stampede at the El-Wak Stadium that claimed the lives of six young women and left several others injured.
The victims were among thousands of young Ghanaians who thronged the venue for the 2025/2026 Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) recruitment exercise.
What we know so far about deadly military recruitment stampede
According to a report by adomonline.com on November 14, 2025, Agnes Lomotey said the tragedy exposed the need for a more gender-responsive approach in organising mass recruitment activities.
She noted that although both men and women participated in the exercise, women bore the greatest impact.
“You realise that most people were there, but the most affected were women. Even though we are all human beings, our biological makeups are different,” she explained.
Agnes Lartey told senior female officers that despite progress made in promoting gender awareness, challenges persist during recruitment and employment processes.
She encouraged the military to draw lessons from the incident and adjust their procedures to better protect applicants, especially women.
“I was urging them that based on the experiences from this exercise, they should reduce the physical demands involved in military recruitment processes for upcoming exercises,” she said.
The Minister added that gender considerations must be integrated into all national systems to ensure fairness and safety.
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“It is about time that in every facet of our lives, we look at things through a gender lens,” she said.
She emphasized that recognising gender differences is not about creating inequality but about ensuring appropriate support where it is most needed.
MRA/EB
Ghana Armed Forces gives details of stampede which led to the death of six people
