Abigail Kwartekaa Quartey is a Ghanaian boxing trailblazer. She was 27 years old when she became Ghana’s first female world boxing champion and the first female member of the West African nation’s national team to tour the world.
She faced doubt from her close family as she set out to make history. To begin with, her decision to become a professional boxer was odd for a young woman from a working-class neighborhood in Ghana’s capital, Accra.
Her relatives begged her to quit training.
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She told the Associated Press, “My aunts and siblings didn’t like it when I started boxing. They would come here to beg my coach not to let me become a boxer.”
She continued to practice in the Black Panthers Gym in the Jamestown neighborhood as a teenager, though, and Quartey still trains there to this day.
Quartey was raised in Jamestown and worked alongside her aunt as a teenager, selling rice to support the family.
Jamestown, a fishing-based community in Ghana, is home to numerous boxing icons, and takes great pride in its boxing culture.
But, like the majority of sports in Ghana, boxing has always been viewed as a male-only sport, discouraging women from participating.
Quartey’s brother, another boxer, and her coach were the only people who encouraged her to pursue her dream of boxing.
She quit fighting in 2017 and began making money by selling lottery tickets. Her coach had to work hard to convince her to return to the ring in 2021.
She had no money for a manager and was concerned she wouldn’t make it without one.
But when Quartey won the WIBF World Super Bantamweight title in November 2024 by defeating British boxer Sangeeta Birdi at Jamestown’s main boxing arena, her neighborhood erupted in riotous celebration, with her friends and fans clearly forgetting the discrimination against female boxers.
Quartey became Ghana’s first-ever female world boxing champion but she doesn’t forget to stress that she is not Ghana’s first female boxer.
“There were women in boxing before I ventured into boxing,” she said. But they weren’t allowed to travel outside the country, she explained.
Sarah Lotus Asare, a boxing coach and the project lead for the Girls Box Tournament, stated that Quartey’s world title means a lot to all Ghanaian fighters.
“Even for the male boxers, when they fight with non-Africans, it’s very difficult for them to win, because they have a lot more facilities and equipment than we do,” she explained.
Ebenezer “Coach Killer” Adjei, the groundbreaker’s coach, described her victory as “a big deal for her, the gym, the community, Ghana, Africa, and the world at large.”
18-year-old Perpetual Okaijah, who was training with the trailblazer during the interview, revealed that her family had also attempted to discourage her from attending the gym by claiming that it was reserved for men. She has, however, continued to go.
More than titles and honors, Quartey hopes to influence young women in her community.
She hopes more female athletes will pursue careers in sports.
“I am a world title holder, and that confirms that what a man can do, a woman can also do,” Quartey remarked.
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