Let’s Stop Defilement And Incest In Ghana !!!!!!!

Sunday, 01 January 2012 03:49
Let’s Stop Defilement And Incest In Ghana !!!!!!!

Hopefully my rather strong title for this week will not be edited away. I was going to start my piece this week with a nice poem I learnt in Class Four of the Ridge Church School. This poem has been re-ignited and keeps running through my mind, and it occurred as soon as I put down a date in my diary to meet with some teachers at the Ridge Church School last week. I was also going to write my last piece on the ‘is there child labour on cocoa farms in Ghana or not’ debate between The Minister of Women and Children and some researchers from the University of Ghana, Legon, that ensued last week. I have shelved all those stories because I read yet another disheartening defilement story from the Western region filed by the Ghana News Agency on February 25, 2006.

A Tarkwa Circuit Court has sentenced a 43 year old farmer, Kweku Tuah to 25 years imprisonment for impregnating his 18-year-old daughter who is presently seven months pregnant. According to the story, the convicted man and victim’s mother are no longer married. The accused took custody of the victim from her mother and started having sexual relations with her from age 13. He asked her not to disclose their relationship to anyone else. The Chronicle newspaper’s editorial of February 8 2006, discussed rape and defilement and asked for action to be stepped up in Ghana. That same issue of Chronicle reported a case from Swedru where a father has been accused of rape by his daughter, and this, she says, resulted in the birth of one of her four children. She has also accused him of defiling his daughter’s six-year–old daughter, his own granddaughter.

Apart from the Kwame Nkrumah vrs J.B. Danquah stories in the newspapers this weekend, there were some stories on rape and defilement. In the Spectator; a pastor is alleged to have cast a spell on a final year student of Odumase Secondary School. She had been sent to the pastor by her father because she suffered rheumatism and had been living with the pastor ever since. The Pastor asked her to stop going to school and her father sought the intervention of CHRAJ for the girl to be taken to the hospital for a pregnancy and HIV tests and for her to be removed from the Pastor’s residence. The Mirror of February 25 ‘from the Courts’ page reported two cases of defilement this week. An herbalist from Sunyani was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for defiling a 14-year-old-girl suffering from epilepsy. A farmer was also jailed 10 years for defiling a 15-year-old-girl after a wedding at Gomoa Tarkwa.

Statistics from the Ghana Police Service website indicates that reportage on defilement has increased since 1999. 154 cases were reported in 1999, 204 cases in 2001 and 509 cases in 2003. As at July 2005, 210 cases had been reported by the Unit in Accra alone and this was more than cases reported for the whole of Ghana in 2001. The Gender Centre in Accra conducted a Survey and found out that almost a fifth of girls and women interviewed said their first sexual experience was by force, this means they were raped. What does this tell us? Defilement of girls by some men in Ghana is a common occurrence and the criminalisation of this act of forcible penetrative sex of children under 16 years has not acted to deter some men from taking advantage of innocent vulnerable girls.

So what is defilement under our Criminal Code? A person, male or female will be found guilty of the offence of defilement under our laws if the prosecution can prove that the man or woman had sexual activity with a child less than sixteen years of age through natural or unnatural means. Natural sex is sexual intercourse the normal way as occurs between man and woman. An example of unnatural sex is sodomy that is, anal sex.

Under no circumstances, can a child in Ghana who is under 16 years of age have sex with anyone. If a man or woman has sex with a child under 16 years, all that is required by the Police is to ascertain by means of a medical report whether the child has had sex or not and then to prove that it was Mr B who had sex with the child. Consent is not an issue in this circumstance. An accused person cannot say that a girl was his girlfriend and she agreed to have sex with him. Once that girl is under 16 years she has no legal capacity to agree to have sex with anyone. Men please take note and try and ascertain the ages of your girlfriends if they appear to look young, otherwise you and be dragged to court for defilement.

If you are found guilty by the court the minimum sentence that will be handed down to you is seven years and the maximum is 25 years. The law fixing a minimum and maximum sentence for rape and defilement was passed in 1998. I have always taken legislators and the then Minister of Justice, Dr Obed Asamoah to task for fixing a maximum term of 25 years. If an HIV positive man defiles a girl who eventually becomes positive why should he be given the same sentence as an HIV negative man who has defiled a girl and why should he not receive a harsher sentence?

I will ask a few questions: what is the sentencing pattern for defilement? What was the basis for the judge in Sunyani to give the accused person 7seven years for defiling a 14-year –old epileptic girl, and then another judge in Swedru to give a farmer ten years for defiling a 15-year-old girl. Why is the law not acting as a deterrent? Why an upper limit of 25 years when some defilers should get life sentences? What policy framework exists at the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General’s Department and or the Department of Social Welfare to address repeat offenders? Is there a Public Register of Sex Offenders to help Police track and monitor offenders with previous sexual abuse convictions? Does the Attorney General have on his staff, child psychologists to interview and prepare children who have been defiled for criminal trials? Is the Attorney General aware such children have special needs during criminal trials that have to be addressed?

These are but a few questions for Mr Ayikwei Otoo, Minister of Justice. The children of Ghana need effective protection from defilement. I cannot stress this urgent need.



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