Annie Jiagge

Annie Ruth Jiagge, (née Baëta; 7 October 1918 – 12 June 1996), also known as Annie Baëta Jiagge, was a Ghanaian lawyer, judge and women's rights activist.

She was the first woman in Ghana and the Commonwealth of Nations to become a judge.

She was a principal drafter of the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and a co-founder of the organisation that became Women's World Banking.

Annie Ruth Baeta was born on 7 October 1918 in Lomé, French Togoland.

Her parents were schoolteacher, Henrietta Baëta and Presbyterian minister, Robert Domingo Baëta.

She belonged to the Ewe ethnic group of southeastern Ghana and Togo.

A member of the notable Baëta family, she was one of eight children, though only Annie and her siblings Christian, Lily, and William lived to adulthood.

Baeta attended Achimota College and earned her teacher's certificate in 1937.

She was Headmistress and Schoolteacher at the Evangelical Presbyterian Girls School from 1940 to 1946.

After the buildings of the Evangelical Presbyterian School for Girls were washed away by the ocean in 1940, the girls were moved to the Evangelical Presbyterian School for Boys.

The school was overcrowded, and Baeta knew it would be difficult to find funding for new buildings.

She approached the Evangelical Presbyterian Church Choir and transformed it into a drama group that put on the George F. Rool musical David the Shepherd Boy.

The performances were successful and the group was invited to perform in major Gold Coast cities and in Togo.

Her older brother, Christian Baëta was an academic and Presbyterian minister who was elected the Synod Clerk of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1945 to 1949 and was instrumental in the establishment of the University of Ghana, Legon in 1948.

Her parents wanted her to have an English education and she lived in the coastal town of Keta (then in British Togoland) with her maternal grandmother.

Baeta was able to raise funds for a new school for the girls that was built by December 1945.

Baeta's time with the Evangelical Presbyterian Girls School was fulfilling but left her restless.

She passed the London Matriculation Examination in 1945.

Her elder brother Christian made inquiries to the University of London on her behalf and her mother secured loans for her.

She was admitted to the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1946.

Her male colleagues from the Gold Coast urged her to abandon her studies, thinking them too difficult for a woman.

One offered to arrange a position for her at the Paris Academy to study dress design.

She told them she would return to the Gold Coast if she didn't pass her first examination.

She passed, and was no longer bothered by the men.

She received her LLB in 1949 and was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn the following year.

Baëta also participated in religious and social work during her free time in London.

She worked with youth camps organised by the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) and was elected to the Executive Committee of the World YWCA during her final years as a student.

Baeta established a private practice upon her return to the Gold Coast in 1950.

She led a public relations initiative to establish a national YWCA for the colony and a documentary film was produced as part of the drive to educate the public about the organisation.

Baeta married Fred Jiagge on 10 January 1953.

She gave up the Bar and became a magistrate for the Bench in June 1953.

In 1954, she began regularly attending the conferences of the World Council of Churches.

From 1955 to 1960, she was president of the YWCA.

She and her husband adopted a child, Rheinhold, in 1959.

In 1959, she became a judge for the Circuit Court.

"Injustice eats me internally. I get very restless when I come in touch with it."

After learning of a young woman who was raped in Accra after coming there from the countryside for a job interview, Jiagge sought government assistance to provide safe accommodations for visiting women.

She secured an audience with Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah and convinced him of the project's importance.

She spearheaded a successful campaign in 1961 that raised substantial funds for a YWCA women's hostel.

That year she became a judge of the High Court of Justice.