An assistant headmaster of the Bole Senior High School in the Savannah Region has been remanded into police custody for allegedly raping a final year student of the school.
The accused, Issahaku Jadua, is alleged to have invited the victim into his office at about 6:00 pm on 20 May 2022 to collect past questions in preparation for final exams.
The police said upon entering the office, Mr. Jadua forcefully had sex with the 21-year-old victim.
The Savannah Regional Public Relations Officer, Inspector Adjeikum Owusu, who confirmed the incident to The Ghana Report, said the accused was arrested on Wednesday, 25 May 2022, after a medical examination of the victim.
“Her brother came to our station in the morning and reported that one of his junior sisters is at Bole Senior High, and information reaching him is that the said sister had been raped by one of the tutors.
“So, the crime officer and other officials from the Ghana Education Service went to the school and took the girl to the hospital for diagnosis to ascertain the fact of the case. So, yesterday, the tutor was arrested and detained,” he said in an interview with theghanareport.com.
The police also encouraged rape victims to be bold enough to report such unfortunate incidences as the perpetrators will be brought to book.
The accused who has been charged with rape was put before the Tamale District Court on 26 May 2022 and is to reappear on 31 May 2022.
Issues of rape and defilement keep rising steadily.
Research shows that 96 children below 15 were defiled in Accra alone in 2019.
The figure constitutes the number of only reported cases being tried at the Accra Circuit Court 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In some cases, even when the cases are reported, the intervention of highly placed persons leads to these cases being withdrawn to be settled at home.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, compensations are 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 on a daily basis.
What the law says
Ghana’s criminal law recognises incest, sexual harassment, child sexual abuse, and rape as sexual offences that attract firm punishment.
The Ghana Criminal Act 1960 (Act 29) makes these engagements criminal and punishable by imprisonment.
Section 98 of the Act restrictively defines rape as the carnal knowledge of a female of 16 years or above without her consent.
It goes on to state that “A person who commits rape commits a first-degree felony and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment of not less than five years and not more than twenty-five years.”
Most of these victims who report cases to the police usually want two things: for the accused to be arrested and punished.
Others simply want to forget the incident ever happened.
But the wheels of justice grind slowly for most of these victims, as they are forced to live with the incident for more than three years without obtaining justice.
Some have had the unfortunate situation of going on a legal tussle with the accused person in court, recounting painful memories.
In 2016, the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service recorded 273 defilement cases.
In 2015, 191 defilement cases were recorded.
The figure represented an increase of 42.9%.
Rape cases also increased from 38 in 2015 to 56 in 2016, per the police report.
The issue of rape is a delicate subject, not just in Ghana but in other parts of the world.
Nigeria, for instance, organised a protest after a university student in Nigeria’s Benin city reported a rape case in June this year.
Uwaila Vera Omozuwa was raped and found dead, lying half-naked in a pool of blood at the church where she had been a member of the choir.
Her death sparked a lot of outrage among the populace, with many calling for the head of the culprits.
But as dire as the situation may appear, some are also inclined to the convention that sexually assaulted victims are to blame for their ‘misfortune’.
Some have argued that the victims even enjoy the ride during the assault.
Cyril George Carstensen Lutterodt, popularly known as Counselor Lutterodt, argued that even though the victim may not be ready for the act, there is still some form of ‘enjoyment’.
“Anytime the act begins, you’re not ready for it but during the act, you consent to it,” Counselor Lutterodt alleged.
He further said research from most individual rape victims proves that in the end, “they not only enjoy the act but end up having sexual relationships with the rapist.”
He, however, received a lot of backlash from the populace for that remark.
Campaign against Rape and Defilement
In November 2018, the Domestic Violence and Victim’s Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service, Health Ministry, and Ghana Education Service, in collaboration with Rich Media Consult, launched a campaign dubbed ‘I stand against Rape and Defilement’.
The campaign was aimed at connecting all stakeholders to create awareness and work towards reducing cases of rape and defilement in the country.
At the launch, the National Coordinator of DOVVSU, Superintendent Evelyn Borbor, said the unit received an average of 20 cases of defilement and 10 rape cases across the country every month.
The figures, she said, were alarming and attributed the problem to inadequate education on the subject.
“The lack of education is a major cause of the increment we are seeing. A lot of children do not know how to protect themselves against perpetrators of rape and defilement, and the fact that even when they become victims, most parents do not know the measures to take to ensure that they do not occur again,” she explained.