Man Who Defiled And Infected Girl With HIV Remanded In Prison Custody

A man suspected of defiling and infecting a 14-year-old girl with HIV and tuberculosis has been remanded in prison custody in Yendi.

The accused, reportedly employed as a contractor to work on roads at Gushegu, is scheduled to reappear in court on Thursday, August 24, 2023.

The distressing incident, which occurred in January this year, has brought about severe health complications to the young victim.

According to the father of the victim, Awuni Tia, the suspect had threatened the young girl, coercing her into silence by warning her not to disclose the incident to anyone.

Fearing for her safety, she endured the traumatic experience in silence until her deteriorating health caught her family’s attention.

“There was a day the girl was having a problem, and we didn’t know what the problem was because she was bleeding every day. So we got to find out that she was seriously sick. When we sent her to the hospital, they did a lot of tests, and they could not find anything.

“So we came home after a week, and she got malaria again for two months. So from that, we realized that she was defiled by a man called Alhassan Yakubu Kamgbala. So when we approached him, he also accepted it was a mistake. We reported to the police station, and they arrested him,” he spoke to Citi News, monitored by The Ghana Report.

Defilement has become a grave societal issue with far-reaching consequences, encompassing immediate trauma and enduring psychological effects.

Research by The Ghana Report has revealed that 96 children under 15 were defiled in Accra alone in 2019.

The figure constitutes the number of only reported cases tried at the Accra Circuit in 2019.

Many experts say this figure could be more as parents of rape victims, for fear of social rejection and shame, refuse to report such incidents to authorities.

In some cases, even when the cases are reported, the intervention of highly placed persons leads to these cases being withdrawn to be settled at home.

Also, in some cases, compensation is offered to the victim and family.

And this is the scenario across the length and breadth of the country, which suggests that a lot more girls are defiled almost daily.