Quiz: Widowhood rites, indiscriminate shaking of hands at funerals, unexplained illnesses, sudden deaths of young people, sores that won’t heal, mental illnesses and perhaps many more - what do they all have in common? Answer: Negative traditions, beliefs and practices. Let us face it. In this twenty-first century Ghana, there are some traditions and baseless beliefs and practices that have everything to do with retrogression in our development as a people. They add zero value to our lives in an enlightened age where others are constantly advancing to higher heights. Rather, we are engrossed in some traditions, beliefs and practices that continue to inflict pain and retrogression on our people. Attending back to back funerals over the last couple of week-ends has left me with so much food for thought on some of the things we do because by tradition, we have to go through them. I do not understand why, for example, we continue to line up and shake hands at funerals just because it is the tradition. And we do this religiously even in times of cholera outbreak. Yet, health influencers have reminded us time and again that certain communicable diseases could be spread through shaking hands with other people. For every funeral, hand shakes are more of the norm. From the minute one arrives at the funeral grounds, till one departs, one is likely to have shaken not less than 20 hands, depending on the size of the funeral. In reality therefore, such gatherings are the chief sources of the spread of multiples of germs. What never ceases to amaze me is the readiness with which mourners are ready to tuck into the finger snacks that are served at the funeral grounds. Without attempting to wash their hands with soap and water or have them sanitized, people are ready to pick and eat. Can we then do away with the tradition of shaking hands with mourners at funerals? I believe we can gradually bring it to a minimal if we accept that the shaking of hands is a sign of sympathizing. The thing is, most of the time at such funerals, people line up to shake hands because they want to be seen and recognized as having been present. If that is so, then the people, who matter and therefore will need to see who came to sympathize, are the family members of the deceased. All others could be acknowledged with a wave of the hand. For the reason of good healthy and hygiene practices, it is perhaps time to begin to wind up on the cultural practice that expects one to shake hands by all means at funerals The other area where traditional beliefs stifle advancement and continue to cripple many who go through them with fear is the practice of widowhood rites. A couple of weeks ago, the world celebrated International Widows’ Day to highlight the plight of widows. Even though in some cases, widowers also suffer psychological traumas going through obnoxious customary practices and needless hassles, the plight of a widow is always in the excess. In our culture, despite the availability of post-mortem examinations, sometimes, rather ridiculously, widows are suspected of having a hand in their husband’s demise. Widows are made to undergo certain rituals some of which could be very traumatizing and psychologically damaging for a woman who is mourning a husband she has shared good times with. Why do we allow, in this day and age, for a widow to stay in a room alone with the body of her husband in the name of customary rites? In certain parts of our country, the rites expected of widows are unbelievably dehumanizing. What torture? A couple of weeks ago, a workshop was organized by the Widow’s Orphans Movement in Bolgatanga, Upper East Region, to mark this year’s International Widow’s Day. The findings of a research conducted into issues affecting the welfare of widows and their children in the Upper East Region were shared with participants at the workshop. Describing some of the ordeals that some of the widows were made to go through, a participant spoke about how she was made to strip naked, drink concoctions and had her hair shaved off as part of the rites she had to go through when her husband died. Others said they were forced to marry their deceased husbands’ brothers against their will. A widow who shared her experience at the workshop recounted how on refusing to go through any kind of rites, she was tied with a rope and beaten by her husband’s relatives. How can such cruelty be allowed to be visited on women mourning their husbands? Widowhood rites are customs that take away the dignity of an individual and must be stopped because they are infringements on one’s human rights. But widowhood rites are only one such inimical traditional practices rife in our society today, the value of which no one can tell you. Mental illnesses and certain diseases are seen as curses and so with all the alarming interpretations that put fright in sufferers and their families, the thought of seeking conventional medicine or interventions are quickly dismissed. Similarly, in this age of advancement where aids are readily available to make disabilities turned into abilities, children born with abnormalities in our part of the world are seen to be “curses from the gods” and are denied love and care. Autism for example, is seen by some as taboos and parents continue to hide their autistic children denying them the opportunity to live meaningful happy lives. While a few of our traditional practices and beliefs are still relevant and provide enrichment to our culture, there are countless others in our society today which are of negative consequences and undermine the freedom and happiness of the individual. I love our traditional marriage ceremonies and how the two families are brought together. I also adore our various traditional naming ceremonies and how we “welcome” babies into our world. Though puberty rites have gradually faded out, I believe they were positive signs in that they encouraged virginity and reduced promiscuity to some extent. I am told that young girls those days looked forward to going through puberty rites and the ceremonies that went with it. The tradition of chieftaincy is a beauty we must uphold if we can do away with the sometimes prolonged and unnecessary disputes. The governance system it showcases and the discipline it brings in our communities make them still relevant for community development. However, those negative anti-social and punitive customs and practices must be dealt away with. There are too many of them that are simply irrelevant to this age. Such beliefs and practices must necessarily be boycotted. We need to adapt and live lives relevant to the twenty first century and which are progressive to society and humans. We have long gone past those days of negative traditions and beliefs. We need to chart a positive way forward. vickywirekoandoh@yahoo.com