Jiagge, Annie (1918–1996)

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Jiagge, Annie (1918–1996)

Ghanaian lawyer, national and international women's rights activist, and author of the basic draft and introduction to the UN Declaration on Elimination of Discrimination against Women, who was the first Ghanaian woman to become a High Court judge and the first woman judge of the Commonwealth. Name variations: Auntie Annie. Pronunciation: JHEE-aggie. Born Annie Ruth Baeta on October 7, 1918, in Lome, French Togoland; died in Accra, Ghana, on June 12, 1996; one of four surviving children of the Reverend Robert Domingo Baeta (a pastor of the Presbyterian Church) and Henrietta Baeta (a schoolteacher); attended Achimota College, receiving her Teacher's Certificate, 1937; London School of Economics and Political Science, LLB, 1949; married Fred Jiagge, on January 10, 1953; children: Rheinhold (adopted 1959).

Awards:

The Grand Medal of Ghana (1969); The Gimbles International Award (1974); LLD, University of Ghana.

Started a career as schoolteacher; was head-mistress of Evangelical Presbyterian Girls School (1940–46); gave up teaching to embark on a legal career (1946); admitted to the London School of Economics and Political Science, also to Lincoln's Inn (1946); received LLB (1949); called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn (1950); returned to Ghana, then known as the Gold Coast (1950) and went into private practice; gave up practice after marriage (1953) and became a magistrate; became a senior magistrate (1956), a Circuit Court judge (1959), a High Court judge (1961), an Appeal Court judge (1969), and president of the Court of Appeal (1980–83); retired (1983).

Member of Executive Committee World YWCA (1955–1960); president of YWCA Ghana (1958–62); vice chair, World YWCA (1962–72); Ghana's representative on the UN Commission on Status of Women (1966); Rapporteur, UN Commission on the Status of Women (1967); authored basic draft of United Nations Declaration on Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1968); president, UN Commission on the Status of Women 21st Session (1968); authored introduction to UN Declaration on Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1966–69); chaired Commission on Investigation of Assets of Senior Public Servants and Named Political Leaders (1975); founded Ghana National Council on Women and Development (1975–82); served as chair, Ghana National Council on Women and Development (1975–83); president, World Council of Churches (1980); leader of Ghana Delegation to International Women's Conference in Mexico (1975) and in Copenhagen (1980); chair, Committee on Churches Participation in Development, Ghana (1984–91); moderator, Program to Combat Racism, World Council of Churches (1985); member, UN Panel to conduct Public Hearings on the Activities of Transnational Corporations in South Africa and Namibia (1991); member, Committee of Experts to make proposals for a Draft Constitution for Ghana (1992); member, the President's Transitional Team (1993–96); member, Council of State, Ghana.

In 1940, in the West African coastal town of Keta, then part of a British colony named British Togoland, the buildings that housed the Evangelical Presbyterian School for Girls were washed away by the sea. When the girls were moved to the nearby Evangelical Presbyterian School for Boys, the new, young head of the girls' school was distressed by the situation. The school was overcrowded, the teaching and learning stressful. Annie Baeta, later known as Annie Jiagge, wanted to see the girls settled in new buildings, but she knew there was little money available for such a project. Instead, she approached the Evangelical Presbyterian Church Choir, convinced it could play a useful role in raising funds. Under her direction, the choir was transformed into a drama group, which performed a highly successful musical by George F. Rool titled "David the Shepherd Boy." The dance rhythms, choreography, and costumes astonished many, and news of the choir's performances spread throughout the country. The group was so successful that it was invited to perform in major cities of the Gold Coast and in neighboring Togo. By December 1945, a new girls' school had been built. The leadership, managerial qualities, and decisiveness which Jiagge displayed in raising funds for her school would be evident throughout her life.

Annie Ruth Baeta was born in 1918 in Lome, French Togoland (Lome would become the capital of the French-speaking West African country of the Republic of Togo in 1960) and grew up during a period of rapid social change. At the time of her birth, many African countries were colonies of European states—France, Britain, Germany, and Portugal. The modern West African states had not yet been created. In the late 1950s, the launching of her career as a judge would coincide with the beginning of the period of decolonization, when several African nations gained political independence from the European colonial powers.

Annie's mother Henrietta Baeta was a schoolteacher; her father Robert Domingo Baeta, a minister of the Presbyterian Church, was born into a prominent family, well respected in British and French Togoland as well as in the British Gold Coast. At the time of Annie's birth, Robert Baeta was trying to establish the church in French Togoland. One of eight children, though only four survived to adulthood, Annie and her siblings Christian, William, and Lily were close.

Though Jiagge began her schooling in Lome, her parents were intent on her having an English education. Thus, Annie spent her childhood living with her maternal grandmother in Keta, a coastal town in British Togoland, which in 1956 would merge with the British colony then known as the British Gold Coast. In 1957, the British Gold Coast would become the independent state of Ghana. Jiagge's mother and grandmother both urged the child to think for herself and implanted in her a sense of responsibility, perseverance, and decisiveness.

In 1933, Annie entered Achimota College in Accra, the capital of the British Gold Coast, graduating in 1937 with a teacher's certificate. After working as a schoolteacher and headmistress from 1940 to 1946, Jiagge gave up teaching to embark on a legal career; her stint as a schoolteacher and headmistress, though fulfilling, had left her "restless." While a student at Achimota College, she and a group of students had been taken on a tour of the Law Courts in Accra that had left a strong impression. At the time, however, there were no facilities for the study of law in the Gold Coast. Because her father had died, she turned to her older brother Christian for help. Christian was sympathetic and made enquiries for her to study law at the University of London. Annie's mother also offered her support and secured loans to pay Annie's expenses.

In 1946, Annie was off to London, having been admitted to the London School of Economics and Political Science and also to Lincoln's Inn. In her class, there were only three other

women: two British and one Indian. Many men from the Gold Coast, who were also students at Lincoln's Inn, thought her goals were unrealistic, since few women were studying law at the time. Convinced that she would not graduate, they urged her to give up her studies, which they thought too difficult for a woman. One of them kindly offered to arrange for her to study dress designing at the Paris Academy in London. Jiagge promised the men that she would pack up and return to the Gold Coast if she failed the first examination. When she passed, these same fellows had no more to say and avoided her. In due course, Annie completed her studies, obtaining a bachelor's degree in Law in 1949. In 1950, she was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn.

Injustice eats me internally. I get very restless when I come in touch with it.
—Annie Jiagge

Jiagge's stay in London had not been solely devoted to study; she took on a great deal of social and religious work in her free time, participating in youth camps organized by the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Britain and on the Continent. Her work with the YWCA and later the World Council of Churches would continue throughout her life. Through these activities, she became aware of the difficulties that women and children face worldwide. In her last years as a student in Britain, she was elected to the Executive Committee of the World YWCA.

On her return to the Gold Coast in 1950, Jiagge went into private practice. In her free time, she led a major public relations drive to establish a national YWCA in the Gold Coast; a documentary film was produced to educate the public on the need for the organization. Annie was president of the YWCA from 1955 to 1960.

In 1961, she spearheaded a campaign to raise funds for the construction of a YWCA hostel for women in Accra, Ghana's capital. By her own account, the need for a hostel for women presented itself when a rape case was brought before her. A young woman had arrived in Accra from the countryside to attend a job interview. At interview's end, it was too late for her to travel back home, and she naively accepted an offer of shelter from a man who then raped and robbed her. Troubled by the young woman's story, Jiagge sought assistance from the government to provide safe, inexpensive accommodations for women who visited the city. Granted an audience with Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana, she convinced him of the importance of her project. With support from the government and other sources, Jiagge raised substantial funds for the YWCA women's hostel, which still stands in Accra.

In January 1953, three years after her return from Britain, Annie married Fred Jiagge, whom she had met when she was a student at Achimota College. The pressure of combining a professional career with domestic responsibilities made her give up the Bar and join the Bench as a magistrate that June. However, she had a brilliant career in the judiciary and progressed steadily up the judicial ladder, becoming a Circuit Court judge in 1959, a High Court judge in 1961, a judge of the Court of Appeal in 1969, and, from 1980 until her retirement in 1993, president of the Court of Appeal. Though most Ghanaians referred to her as Justice Annie Jiagge, those who knew her well tended to call her "Auntie Annie," while to her close nieces, nephews, and cousins, she was "Auntiega," which, in the Ewe language, her mother tongue, means "big aunt."

Perhaps it was her strong commitment to the cause of women that led to Jiagge's appointment in 1962 as Ghana's representative on the UN Commission on the Status of Women. She would represent the country on the commission until 1972, and in 1968 was elected chair of the 21st Session of the Commission. Through her work at the UN, she made her mark internationally as a champion of women's rights. While a member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, she was exposed, sometimes too much, to the nature of violence against women worldwide. She once recounted how she could not sleep after reading a disturbing report of a man who had killed his sister because of her involvement in an extramarital affair. On another occasion, she was furious to learn that in some countries women were not included in head counts.

History has largely credited Jiagge with authoring the basic draft of the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in 1967. According to Jiagge, it all began a year earlier, in 1966, when she was elected rapporteur of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. While meeting in Iran, the commission was charged with the task of preparing a document on the elimination of discrimination against women. After two weeks of studying and discussing reports from different countries, the international team had not yet produced a draft document. As rapporteur, Jiagge was unhappy with the situation. She feared that the group might leave Iran without a document and decided to attempt a basic draft which would serve as a discussion paper. After consulting with other team members, which included Princess Ashraf Pahlavi of Persia (Iran), Jiagge sat up from 9 pm to about 7 am, struggling with the draft. By midmorning, the document was typed and distributed. A decision was taken to send the document to all UN member-states for comment, and it was later adopted. In the following year, 1968, she was asked to write an introduction to the Declaration. Jiagge's Declaration was the forerunner of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (popularly known as CEDAW) which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979. The convention has been ratified by 155 member states of the United Nations. For her work, Jiagge was awarded the Grand Medal of Ghana in 1969, the country's highest honor. That same year, she received the Gimbles International Award for Humanitarian Works.

Back in Ghana, Jiagge's interest and activism on matters regarding women's rights did not flag. In 1975, she founded and served as the first chair of the Ghana National Council on Women and Development, a state-supported organization that promotes the interests and well-being of Ghanaian women. In the same year, she led the Ghanaian delegation to the International Women's Conference in Mexico. In 1980, she was again the leader of Ghana's delegation to the International Women's Conference in Copenhagen. In 1993, she was a member of the UN Secretary-General's advisory group to plan the Fourth World Conference on Women that took place in Beijing in 1995.

Justice Jiagge also played an important role in the establishment of the women's bank which is now known as Women's World Banking. Prior to the 1975 International Women's Conference held in Mexico, Jiagge, as chair of the Ghana National Council on Women and Development, had convened a meeting of a cross-section of women from all over the country. Her aim was to find out the views of Ghanaian women on the theme of the Mexico conference, "Equality, Development and Peace." The broad majority of the women thought that the priority of the conference should be access to credit for women. This point was made in the Country Report on Ghana that Jiagge presented at the NGO Forum during the International Conference. The issue of credit for women was well received, and a few women from various countries caucused with Jiagge and some other members of the delegation from Ghana on how to give credit to women worldwide. They pledged $100 (US) each and presented the forum with a proposal for a bank for women with $1,200 (US) as seed money. The idea was welcomed and supported, and an organization named "Stitching to Promote Women's World Banking" was set up, with its headquarters in New York. As of 1996, Women's World Banking had affiliates in 50 countries, and Jiagge served on the board of directors of Women's World Banking in Ghana. Members of the Board would refer to her as a "quiet heroine, a woman who understood the pain of women."

It is almost impossible to list all of Annie Jiagge's activities. A devout Christian, she was active not only in the YWCA but participated in the activities of the World Council of Churches, where she was one of the presidents from 1975 to 1983. At the World Council of Churches, she helped mobilize forces against apartheid in South Africa and was the moderator of the Program to Combat Racism from 1984 to 1991.

The government of Ghana called on her expertise several times; in 1966, she was asked to chair a Commission to Investigate the Assets of Senior Public Servants and Named Political Leaders. From 1961 to 1976, she was a member of the Council of the University of Ghana. The university honored her with a Doctor of Laws degree in 1974. In 1979, she served on the Constituent Assembly whose work ushered in Ghana's Third Republic. Even after her retirement from the Bench in 1983, she continued to serve her country and the world. In 1985, she was a member of a UN Panel to conduct Public Hearings on the Activities of Transnational Corporations in South Africa and Namibia. In 1991, she served as a member of a Committee of Experts that drafted Ghana's 1992 Constitution. From 1993 until her death in 1996, Justice Annie Jiagge was a member of Ghana's Council of State.

Justice Annie Jiagge lived a full life and was a woman with a keen sense of justice who did not suffer fools gladly. Though always busy, she found time for her immediate and extended family. She loved gardening, and friends would often find her tending her poultry in her back yard. By the time of her death in Accra, Ghana, at age 78, she was highly respected in Ghana and beyond.

sources:

Personal communication with Justice Annie Ruth Jiagge, May 1995.

Unpublished Order for Memorial, Thanksgiving and Burial Service for the Late Mrs Justice Annie Jiagge, with Tributes. Prepared by the Baeta and Jiagge families. Designed by Orlando Baeta, printed by Buck Press, Accra, Ghana, 1996.