adolescent sex on the increase in ghana

By Halifax Ansah-Addo

July 18, 2005: Researches in Ghana show that increasingly, people are getting into sexual intercourse at much younger ages and the number of sodomy cases is also on the rise.

This was disclosed by Nana Oye Lithur, a Legal Practitioner and Women's rights advocate, when she was commenting on a case in which two young boys, aged 13 and 11 years were alleged to have sodomised another boy aged 9 years in Accra.

Nana Oye Lithur said such reports were ongoing problems in Ghana, but the issue had not received the required attention. She said now, young girls between the ages of 15 and below were having sex with boys aged between 15 and 18. She said the boys were being jailed because it was a criminal offence.

She continued that though the sex may be with the girls' consent, once they were below 16, it became criminal and the boys were jailed with the minimum of 7 years.

Nana Oye Lithur continued that as far back as 1998, research showed that sexual abuse of boys had become rampant thus the criminal code was amended, and the crime of defilement was made a gender neutral crime. Hitherto, it applied to only girls.

Nana said it was time all stakeholders took a critical look at the causes of child sex abuse.

She said though the Women and Juvinile Unit (WAJU) had been set up to handle such cases, there was now the need for a more comprehensive way of handling the problem as the situation had become problematic and very disturbing.

She mentioned the case in which younger boys and girls in secondary schools were being sexually abused by their older peers, but there was no system put in place to handle the issue.

A clinical psychologist, Adolf Awuku Bekoi, who contributed to the discussion on Choice FM, confirmed that child sex was now on the increase. He said it happened mostly with teenagers who had problems of their own in growing up, an attachment problem due to what they got exposed to in their homes. Bekoi said most of such children had problems and should be treated rather than being exposed to the criminal justice system. He said some of the cases may be purely experimental whiles others may be exploitative.

Reverend Fred Degbe, General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, attributed the problem to the lost of values and the rise in moral decadence in society as a whole.

Rev. Degbe said it was time the churches preached a balanced gospel based on truth and righteousness and stop limiting church sermons to prosperity messages alone.

The 9 year old boy who was alleged to have being sodomised was interviewed on the programme and he gave a vivid narration of how it happened. His mother, who also spoke on the programme, alleged that the parents of the alleged perpetrators had denied that the incident happened. She said those parents attempted to bribe her to remain silent on the issue.