Gender advocates are strongly urging policymakers to enact laws to ensure the protection of young girls’ integrity in the wake of continuous reports of assaults on females.
With a stark reference to numerous defilement and rape cases, there is a compelling demand for effective measures to safeguard the well-being of females.
Abenaa Akuamoa-Boateng, the executive director of Women’s Health to Wealth, has been at the forefront of advocating for streamlined laws to safeguard the interests of young girls, who are often victims of sexual assault. She emphasized this commitment following her organization’s collaboration with the Fabulous Woman Network to host the Girls Annual Leadership Camp 2023. The event aimed to enlighten and empower young girls in Junior High School in Dormaa East and Ahafo Ano South West, with the active participation of selected teachers from the areas.
“From the side of the girls, one will say whydon’t they talk to people? Some people even describe them as bad girls and that they want to practice sex. Let us be real. We have a very sad case of a 19-year-old girl who would have completed her Senior High School this year, but she died less than a week before her last paper. This lady was 7-months pregnant with a young man, and this young man came and said take this drug, it will take the 7-month fetus out, this girl ended up with circumcision and died in the hospital on Saturday while she was supposed to write her last paper on the next Monday. Why should this happen to this girl? It happened to her because society wants to be moralistic when society itself is immoral because we have pastors, and people in high authority-they are the ones who impregnate these girls. They are the ones who give these things to them and nobody takes them to account. We also recently had a meeting with judges, police commanders, the education directors, and the health service trying to find out why cases of sexual abuse and especially rape and defilement are not prosecuted, and they came out with different views. Some of them are saying that we are trying to do it and someone interferes from the traditional side that they are going to resolve the issue at home. From the Policemen, they said you the press people interfere like Oyerepa, and I told them that, yes, they will interfere because when they bring the cases to you, and you fail to prosecute, they go to those who will not take any money from them but will make sure that the case is prosecuted. So, we have a role to play. The agents that are supposed to see justice for these girls and the poor people, if you don’t do it, they will continue going to the press because they know that there, their story will be heard, and they will get justice,” she noted.
The handling of sexual assault cases in the legal system raises significant concerns. Moreover, the practice of requiring victims to pay for certain tests after experiencing such trauma is a pressing issue that needs attention.
“The other thing that we saw was when we asked the court, yes, at times go come, go come, they don’t have money to file the case. That is what the police told us. They have the cases, they have to put in the filing fee. The parents who are poor don’t have it, therefore this becomes a case that falls by the roadside, and we say, is it fair? That same poor girl goes to the hospital to have the medical examination done, and they have to pay between 300 and 800 cedis to the medical authorities so that if the case is called in court, that is what the medical people say they will use that for transportation and others. But is it fair for that girl whose rights have been violated, for the parent who is poor, that is why most times whose kids are violated, do they have to go through this? That is why some of us are so passionate that things have to change in Ghana. When cases like this happen, the police should stop asking the poor woman to pay for you to go to the community to go and arrest the culprits. Is that her job? And in the hospitals, can we not do anything about such things and have a fund for such children so that that examination can go free for that particular poor girl who has been defiled- that 9-year-old defiled by a 40-year-old and she dies and the parent has to go and pay for filing fee at the court. Are we being real?,” Madam Abenaa Akuamoa-Boateng added.
“Luxury taxes” imposed on sanitary pads have also been an issue that the executive director of Women’s Health to Wealth wants to be critically looked at.
“We sent a petition from the two districts, signed by over a thousand girls through their district chief executives, to the president to remove the tax on sanitary materials. Sanitary material is not a luxury. No woman chooses to menstruate, but if the women don’t menstruate, where will the next generation of that particular country be? It is a necessity.”