The Obuasi allegations confront Ghana with a question we cannot answer with another statement: what protection follows a girl’s disclosure of abuse?
What exactly are we asking a girl to be brave for if, after she speaks, the adults responsible for protecting her become more concerned about the consequences for the person she names? We tell her to report abuse, to trust her teachers, to tell her parents, to believe that the police will help.
But when her disclosure threatens someone’s position, political prospects, or standing in the community, does our commitment to her suddenly become negotiable? I am angry that a girl can do everything we told her to do and still be left wondering whether telling the truth was a mistake.
I am angry at how easily a girl can disappear inside the discussion of what allegedly happened to her. We debate a man’s career, an institution’s reputation, a party’s decision, and the embarrassment facing a community.
Meanwhile, who is asking whether she feels safe enough to sleep, return to class, or walk past people who may know her story? These are questions that should shape our response from the moment a complaint is received. Her life continues while everyone else discusses the controversy.
The allegations at Obuasi Senior High Technical School require a fair and thorough investigation. Criminal guilt must be established through evidence and lawful proceedings. But protecting students, preserving evidence, and investigating the handling of earlier complaints are responsibilities that exist while that process unfolds.
We should be disturbed by any system in which a girl must first attract national attention before she can be confident that someone will take responsibility for her safety.
Only nine days ago, we marked the International Day of the Girl Child. We spoke about girls’ voices, leadership, and opportunity. What are those promises worth if we cannot confront the power that may stand between a girl and protection? We cannot keep asking girls to become courageous while allowing adults and institutions to remain comfortable.
Our policies must make it harder to ignore a complaint, dangerous to intimidate a witness, and consequential to conceal established wrongdoing. Otherwise, we are teaching girls that their voices matter only until they name someone who matters more.
The allegations involving Zakaria Abdulai, the interdicted headmaster of Obuasi Senior High Technical School, bring those questions painfully into view. JoyNews reported on October 18 that investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni said 19 students had come forward with allegations.
This is a reported number of students making allegations, not a count of proven offenses or criminal charges. It nevertheless demands an investigation capable of examining each account thoroughly, protecting those involved, and establishing what happened without intimidation or political interference.
GES announced Abdulai’s interdiction on October 14, and Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu subsequently confirmed referral of the criminal aspects to CID. Citi News also reports that Abdulai has resigned as NDC Juaben constituency secretary and withdrawn his chairmanship candidacy, while the party withdrew his clearance.
These developments update the public record. They do not resolve the allegations, establish responsibility, or answer the questions about how earlier concerns were handled. A political withdrawal cannot become the point at which national attention withdraws too.
Those earlier concerns require independent scrutiny. MyJoyOnline reported NAGRAT President Jacob Anaba’s claims that 38 teachers were asked to leave the school after speaking against the headmaster. That claim must be investigated, not repeated as an established finding. If retaliation occurred, its implications would extend beyond the staff affected. A student who sees an adult face consequences for raising concerns may reasonably wonder what protection could possibly exist for her.
Investigators must reconstruct the chain of responsibility: who received complaints, what information was available, what decisions were made, and why. Where evidence establishes suppression, intimidation, interference, or neglect of an applicable duty, consequences must follow.
Otherwise, we risk leaving intact the very conditions through which abuse can remain concealed. Institutions are made up of people with assigned responsibilities; accountability must reach the decisions they made while holding them.
Fairness requires acknowledging the earlier August inquiry as well. According to JoyNews’ reporting, that committee found the sexual harassment allegations unsubstantiated on the evidence presented to it, and Abdulai denied sexually harassing students. The report distinguishes that inquiry from the fresh investigation following the recent reporting.
An earlier administrative finding must be understood within its scope, and new allegations must receive proper examination. The presumption of innocence remains essential, alongside immediate measures to protect complainants, preserve evidence, and prevent interference.
Ghana’s Criminal Offences Act already addresses defilement involving children under 16, rape involving females aged 16 or older without consent, and indecent assault. Investigators must establish the facts and apply the appropriate provisions. Yet outside the courtroom, we must confront the dangerous suggestion that a girl’s age can excuse exploitation. Turning 16 does not give anyone permission to threaten, coerce, or sexually assault her.
Nor does it erase an educator’s professional responsibility toward a student whose grades, discipline, opportunities, or access to support may depend on that educator’s authority.
We also have a GES staff code addressing sexual misconduct involving students, and the National Teaching Council advertises mandatory sexual harassment awareness and prevention training for teachers. The existence of those measures makes the enforcement questions unavoidable. How is compliance assessed?
What happens when a complaint names a headmaster? Can a student bypass the school hierarchy? Who checks whether a referral actually reached the police or social welfare? A policy that cannot answer those practical questions leaves the person seeking protection to navigate its weaknesses.
The Education Minister has expressed support for giving the GES Code of Conduct and standards a stronger legal basis under Article 11 of the Constitution. Government must explain what additional powers or duties that reform would create and which existing enforcement gaps it would address.
Meanwhile, criminal law and available disciplinary procedures must be applied. We should be able to distinguish a missing legal provision from a failure to use the authority already available. Both require action, but they require different remedies.
A functioning safeguarding system should make the next step unmistakable. Every school needs a designated route for reporting concerns, an independent alternative when the complaint involves school leadership, and clear duties for recording, risk assessment, police referral, and survivor support.
Complaints should receive a reference number and a named contact so families are not left starting again whenever an officer or administrator changes. Students must be able to report in a language they understand, with appropriate assistance for disability and without depending on a parent’s money or influence.
The system must also protect people after they report. Threats involving grades, accommodation, employment, school participation, or community standing should trigger a separate investigation into possible retaliation. Interview procedures must protect students from intimidation and unnecessary repetition of distressing accounts.
Families should receive explanations of the process and meaningful updates, while public communication preserves confidentiality. Ghana already has child protection procedures and a social welfare case management system; the responsible agencies must demonstrate how those arrangements deliver help within school communities.
Transfers deserve particular attention. Moving a staff member cannot substitute for resolving a serious safeguarding concern. An allegation requires investigation, proportionate interim restrictions, and a recorded outcome. Where misconduct is established through a fair process, relevant professional restrictions must remain enforceable across schools, districts, and employers. The next institution should not have to rely on rumor to discover that someone has been prohibited from working with children.
Government must also answer the question of a national sexual offenders register. Ghanaian Times reported plans for one in 2020. Did it become operational? What law governs it, who maintains it, and can authorized employers obtain reliable checks?
A properly governed register should concern convictions, accurate records, lawful disclosure, and protection of survivors’ identities. Alongside it, employers need access to relevant professional prohibitions imposed after fair disciplinary proceedings. Untested accusations must not become permanent public labels, and established findings must not disappear when someone changes jobs.
Prevention also begins in conversations many adults still find uncomfortable. Children need accurate language for their bodies, an understanding of boundaries, and the confidence to describe conduct that frightens or confuses them. They need to recognize threats, gifts, favors, and demands for secrecy that may be used to manipulate them.
A child who freezes, delays reporting, accepts assistance, or cannot find the words has not caused her own abuse. Education should help her seek support without suggesting that preventing an adult’s wrongdoing was ever her responsibility.
Boys belong in these conversations, as do parents, educators, religious leaders, and community leaders. We must examine the lessons we teach about authority. When obedience is praised without qualification and questioning an adult is treated as disrespect, a child may struggle to recognize that she is allowed to object.
Respectful upbringing must leave room for a child to say, “This person is making me feel unsafe,” and expect an adult to listen carefully and act responsibly.
Beyond the school receiving national coverage are girls whose families may never attract a journalist’s attention. We must confront circumstances in which money, school fees, promises of assistance, or social pressure are used to discourage complaints. Where there is evidence of intimidation or interference, it must be investigated. Families experiencing hardship need practical support that does not depend on surrendering a complaint. Poverty must never determine how much protection a child receives.
That support must be available when it is needed. Medical care, confidential counseling, legal assistance, safe accommodation where necessary, and help to continue education should form a coordinated response. The Police Service describes DOVVSU’s responsibilities as including free services, respectful treatment, and information for complainants about their cases. Those commitments should be accessible to a family with no influential contact and no money for repeated journeys to an office.
We must be equally careful about how we speak of survivors. Sexual violence can cause profound harm, but a girl’s dignity remains hers. She is not spoiled, ruined, or disqualified from love, achievement, and a meaningful future. The language of permanent damage can become another burden she is forced to carry. Our responsibility is to support her recovery and choices, protect her privacy, and ensure that she does not have to become a public advocate to receive private care.
The reported unrest, property destruction, and temporary closure at Obuasi SHTS have affected the wider school community. Violence and damage require appropriate investigation, while students and staff need a safe environment in which education can continue. Those responsibilities must proceed alongside the examination of abuse allegations and institutional conduct. Restoring order must include rebuilding confidence that concerns can be raised and addressed without fear.
Government, Parliament, police, education authorities, and professional regulators must identify who is responsible when a safeguarding complaint stalls. Their response should include enforceable reporting duties, funded survivor services, reliable recruitment checks, and independent oversight. Regular anonymized reporting should show whether complaints are progressing and where corrective action is required.
For those of us who work with children, this scrutiny belongs inside our own organizations. We must know who receives a complaint, how adults are recruited and supervised, and whether our response changes when the person named is respected, well connected, or useful to us. Concern for children becomes credible through the decisions we make when protecting them carries a cost.
A girl who reports abuse should not have to become a national controversy before someone takes responsibility for her safety. She should not need a journalist to make her complaint matter or an influential relative to keep it moving. Every parent, educator, public official, and community leader reading this should be able to answer a practical question: if a girl came to you today, would you know how to secure her protection, and would you act if the person she named were someone you respected? Our answer will be found in what we do with her disclosure.
By; Patrice Robertson
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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
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