Berkley Center

Background: Sister Regina Ignatia Aflah is the Vice Superior General of the Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer of Accra. Originally from the Volta Region of Ghana, Sr. Aflah spent over two decades working in as a human resources manager at Catholic Hospital Battor, before pursuing an Executive Master of Business Administration and Law. She has worked for Caritas Ghana at the national, regional and international levels. In 2023, she established the Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer Sisters Foundation, which combats child labor and human trafficking and seeks to improve the conditions of vulnerable groups, especially women and girls. Sr. Aflah is a Ph.D. candidate in international law and treaty law at Euclid University and is currently working on her doctoral thesis entitled “Environmental Multilateral Treaties Concerning the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea: Evaluating and Addressing Barriers to Effective Implementation in Ghana and Nigeria.”

She spoke with Luisa Banchoff via Zoom on April 23, 2025. In the conversation, she traced her journey to becoming a Catholic sister, from her religious upbringing to a personal conversion experience that led her to pursue spiritual life. She reflected on the importance of human rights to her mission, shaped by her parents’ strong moral example and her witness to the suffering of marginalized communities, and how this has informed both her extensive academic career and her work in establishing the Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer Sisters Foundation.

Bio: Sister Regina Ignatia Aflah, HDR, is a civil lawyer who focuses on international law, human rights law, and environmental law. She has over two decades of experience in administration and human resource management. She has worked for Caritas in numerous capacities, including as a safeguarding officer for Caritas Ghana, the West African regional coordinator for the 2023, and a member of the Caritas Internationalis Women’s Leadership, Equality and Participation Committee. She currently serves on the Caritas Internationalis Legal Affairs Commission. In 2023, she was elected Vice Superior General of her congregation, the Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer of Accra. She serves as executive director of the Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer Sisters Foundation (HDRSF), which she helped to establish. She draws on her extensive experience to champion the rights of deprived communities and combat human trafficking and child labor.

To begin, please tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from?

I’m Sister Regina Ignatia Aflah. Regina is a name given to me by my parents. I was born on the 17th of October, the feast day of St. Ignatius of Antioch, so I added Ignatia to my name. My family name is Aflah. That is why I have these three names.

I am the third of seven siblings, the second girl. I am from the Volta region of Ghana, a village called Nyagbo. After primary and middle school, I attended a technical school and studied secretarial skills. I wrote my O-Levels at Kpando Technical School, and after that, I came to Accra to work for a while. While working, I did my diploma in computer science. After that, I joined the Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer of Accra. I went through formation and became a sister.

Were you raised Catholic? What was your journey to becoming a Catholic sister?

I was born into a Catholic family. My father is a catechist. When priests and sisters came to our village, they came to our house because of my father’s role. As a child, I desired to be like one of them. But you know, as a child, I didn’t understand what it takes or what it means. I brushed that desire away until I came to live in Accra.

While in Accra, I had an enjoyable experience that made me go to the convent. One day, I finished work and met a woman I didn’t know. She asked me to accompany her to a place, and I agreed. She led me to one of our grottoes, where Catholics gather and pray, and she told me that I would be living with her there. I asked her if there was a house here, so how did I live here? And she said, “You’ll spend your entire life with me here.” In the course of the conversation, the woman vanished. That was a turning point in my life. Since the encounter with the woman, the desire to become a Catholic nun came back so strongly that I could not resist it.

After my formation, the first community I was posted to was by the grotto where the woman led me. I worked there for nine years. I am back in that community again: I have my office there and work from there daily. Sometimes, I see my vocation as a gift from God because it’s uncommon for people to go through this kind of experience.

Tell us about your congregation, the Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer.

My congregation was founded by Bishop Joseph Oliver Bowers in 1957. He was then the Bishop of Accra. He felt women were not being taken good care of. They were not being educated; they were just left to do the housework. That motivated him to found the congregation of the Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer.

The work we do focuses on the elevation and capacity building of women. We have many apostolates. Our sisters work in hospitals to take care of women and children. We have midwives, nurses, pharmacists, technicians, and radiographers. As we speak now, one sister is studying medicine and will be done by this year, by the grace of God. Our sisters are also trained as teachers. Working in schools helps us care for children and extend our hands to women. We also do social work, like what I am doing now. We have administrators, accountants, and lawyers like me. We take care of an orphanage. We take care of people who are old. Most of the things that we do go toward supporting humanity from different angles: being teachers, being nurses, being social workers, and all that. Some of our sisters also sew the vestments that the priest and the bishop wear to celebrate the holy Mass. Our sisters also bake the host that we during Mass.

How many sisters are in the congregation? And are you just in Ghana, or are there sisters in other countries?

At the moment, we are 125. The congregation was established for the diocese of Accra. In Ghana, we are in the Archdiocese of Accra, the Dioceses of Koforidua and Sekondi-Takoradi, and the Donkorkrom Vicariate. Some of our sisters work in the U.S. We work in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and New York.

You spent some years working in human resources management. You then studied law and are now doing a Ph.D. What was your experience at the hospital, and what led you to pursue law?

After I became a sister, I was assigned to one of the shops our congregation runs, to work as the manager. I worked there for nine years, and during that time, I was asked to pursue my first degree in computer science at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. After that, I was transferred to Battor to work as the HR manager of Catholic Hospital Battor. While at the hospital, I earned Executive Master of Business Administration.

I handled HR issues for all the hospital staff – doctors, nurses, administrative staff, technicians – trying to see how best to motivate them to work. It’s not easy because handling human beings is difficult, and these are different categories of people you work with in the hospital setup. But the joy is that God will always give you the grace you need to deal with the issues.

One of the issues in the hospital is what we call negligence. There is much litigation in hospitals, and you have issues with negligence. The Dominican sister from Germany was working in the hospital and had sponsored my master’s program. Because I was in charge of the disciplinary committee, they asked me whether I was interested in pursuing further studies to support the staff. That is how I started in law.

The plan was for me to learn ADR, alternative dispute resolution, so that we wouldn’t necessarily have to go through the traditional court system when there are issues in the hospital. However, I realized that Mount Crest University had a whole program to let you get your LL.B. degree in law. So instead of studying ADR for two years, I thought, why don’t I complete the course for three years? So that is how it started. When I finished the LL.B., I did professional studies in Rwanda. I was called to the bar in Rwanda. Then I did my LL.M. with the University of London. I majored in human rights.

When I returned, I was interested in lecturing, so I registered with Euclid University to do my Ph.D. in international law and treaty law, which also has a human rights component. I am currently trying to put my thesis together. Hopefully, I should be done with that this year.

Human rights have been a focus of both your studies and your work. What has drawn you to the field of human rights?

The training that my parents gave me has had an influence. My father provides food for other people to eat. There were many accidents in the village where I grew up, and my father would always bring the accident victims home. I learned charity and compassion toward humanity from my father and my mother.

I’m someone who feels a lot for people. When I was working in the hospital, seeing people suffering was something that I could not stand. I want to speak on behalf of people who have nobody to care for them: migrants, people who are trafficked, and children on cocoa farms who do not go to school. And so I said to myself, why don’t I be the voice of the voiceless for these people who cannot speak? I can speak on their behalf so that they can get some relief and enjoy their rights. That is what motivated me to work in human rights. When I was looking at the programs that Euclid University was running, I realized human rights were part of international law. That is why I chose to study international law and treaty law.

You have worked with Caritas in various capacities. Can you speak more about that?

After working at Battor Catholic Hospital, I returned to Accra and was assigned to Caritas Ghana. While at Caritas Ghana, I supported Caritas Africa as a safeguarding officer. I represented Caritas Africa on the Caritas Internationalis Advisory Committee for Safeguarding, which promotes a management standard for safeguarding. I worked for Caritas Ghana and Caritas Africa for four years.

During the 2023 General Assembly of Caritas Internationalis, I was selected as regional coordinator for the West African region. I did that for some months, but then I was elected Assistant Superior General of my congregation. So, I had to give up some of my responsibilities. I am currently a member of the Caritas Internationalis Legal Affairs Commission.

You served on the Caritas Internationalis Women’s Leadership, Equality and Participation Committee. How did this opportunity arise, and what did you do on the committee?

I was selected to be part of the Women’s Leadership, Equality and Participation Committee because I have worked on human rights, and because my interest has always been to speak for women who cannot speak for themselves. I was asked to represent the African region, which I did for four years.

In 2022, I was in France to speak on one of the committee’s programs about issues affecting women, especially why women are not taking on leadership roles. We realized that some women themselves do not dare to take up those roles because of traditions where they come from that make it impossible for women to assume specific roles. In the Church, certain functions are reserved for men.

We were trying to give women more opportunities based on Pope Francis’s call. We did a lot of advocacy work. I travelled from one country to another in Africa to speak with the Caritas staff and see how women can be elevated.

Do you think the role of women in the Catholic Church has changed under Pope Francis?

Pope Francis appointed women to sensitive positions at the Vatican to head some departments. We will miss him greatly for that, because you can hear women's voices simply because he has allowed us to exhibit our talent and skill. He is someone who has promoted the leadership of women in the Church.

Is there more recognition of sisters’ work in Ghana as well?

It will take some time for certain things to change completely. But I can tell you that gradually, people understand women’s roles in leadership.

Tell us more about The Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer Sisters Foundation, which you helped to establish.

While working with Caritas Ghana, I coordinated an anti-trafficking project that Caritas Ghana with International Justice Mission. The experience opened my eyes to how children are suffering, as well as people who are trafficked and subjected to exploitative labor. When I left Caritas, I told myself: we can’t stop. We need to continue to bring relief to these people who are suffering. So in 2023, with the help of my superior general, I registered the Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer Sisters Foundation. With my sisters, I reach out to the people who need us most, those we consider to be at risk. There are three areas that we are focusing on and campaigning on: child labor on cocoa farms, human trafficking, and illegal migration.

There are many issues as far as agriculture is concerned, but a major one is child labor. We focus on children who are from cocoa-growing communities. Why should children from these communities suffer? We all enjoy chocolate, but should they have to work on the farms just for us to enjoy the final product? So we go to those areas and advocate with teachers and parents so they understand the adverse effects of children being on the farms and the positive effects of sending children to school. After a feasibility study, I began a sensitization program with teachers from cocoa-growing communities. I can tell you that it is going very, very well. Yesterday, I was in one of the communities for the sensitization campaign, and 300 to 400 students were there.

On human trafficking and migration issues, I work with the Ghana Immigration Services at the Aflao border between Ghana and Togo. We see how people are vulnerable and want to cross illegally to reach greener pastures. These days, people don’t want to be in their own countries. They want to leave, go to a different place, and look for work. Most of them are women and young girls. Some do not even have proper documents and go through all kinds of ordeals, all kinds of treatment, because when you want to travel and you don’t have the papers, you go through the desert, you have to go by illegal means. The immigration officers are doing a fantastic job trying to rescue these people. I partnered with them to do sensitization campaigns. We embarked on sensitization campaigns on radio, television, and schools to talk with young girls who want to stop school and go travel.

We’re facing some challenges now, because when you rescue women crossing the border, what do you do? You need to provide them with capacity building. You need to support them. You need to provide them with psychological counseling. You must help them understand who they are and know they can make it without travelling.

I hope to get support in reaching out to many more people. You can have a good idea, but it becomes difficult if the support is not there. For sensitization campaigns, you need to get speakers and facilitators, and you need to pay them. You also need to pay them when you want to publish their stories on television or radio. When you want to support victims, you need to help them financially.

Do you receive support from the government, or other organizations or NGOs?

I’ve not received any support from the government so far, probably because I’ve not made it known. But we’ll see what I’ll do shortly. Barkley University gave us some support. They help us continue our advocacy work with the immigration service at the Aflao border. This is a new program that I am embarking on, hoping that it will continue for some years. International Justice Mission supports our work on child labor in cocoa farms. DKA Austria also supports this advocacy, because DKA’s primary focus is to help children.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

We can only achieve what we want when we have the support. I appeal to get people to support my work, especially in fighting trafficking and illegal migration. If I have organizations supporting our work, then we can do a lot.

Last week I was at the Aflao border. We visited a school of over 2,000 children. They came for the sensitization program. And we can only do that when we have the funds to meet such a vast number and get radio and television to cover it so that others can also hear. But we won’t be able to do it if we don’t have the support.