The number of defilement cases in Ghana appears to be increasing, with a reported incident of forced sexual intercourse with a minor appearing almost daily in the media.
Expert s say the rampant cases of defilement across the country could pass as pedophilia, when assessed which is being disguised as defilement.
The Acting Chief Psychiatrist of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Dr. Akwasi Osei told Public Agenda that although pedophilia is against the law in Ghana, it is not treated as such; instead it is treated as defilement. If we really realize that some of these people are actually pedophiles, then the first point of call should be somebody requiring psychiatric treatment, Dr. Osei emphasized.
According to Dr. Akwasi Osei, Ghana has overlooked this aspect of sex crimes for far too long and it is important to take it into consideration now. For now, Ghana is only scratching the face of the matter, he said.
In the first two months of this year, the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit of the Ghana Police Service (DOVVSU) reported 77 cases of defilement.
March figures have not yet been computed.Last year, the Accra Division of DOVVSU recorded 552 reported cases of defilement, up 81.3 percent from the 449 reported in 2007. In 2008, defilement cases ranked third among all crimes.
The Western Regional office of DOVVSU last year recorded a total of 2,071 general cases, 133, or .06 percent, of which were cases of defilement, defined as corrupting the chastity of or debauching, violating or raping.
But Eric Appiah Okrah, a child protection specialist at UNICEF in Accra, cautioned that although the number of sexual assaults against children would appear to be on the rise, in reality it may just be that more people are reporting the crime because of increased education on the issue.
"As more people get to be aware of this and the consequences on future child development, then the likelihood is that more cases are reported to the police and come into the limelight," Mr. Okrah said, adding that getting people to report the crime in some regions of the country is still an up-hill battle.
"It is shrouded in a kind of secrecy. You realize in the rural areas in several quarters that (the topic of) sexuality is a no-go area and so when it happens there is a tendency to treat it in-house within the family because of the stigma and disgrace it could bring to the family."
The fact that some perpetrators of defilement are arrested several times for the crime has raised concern as to whether the nation is really dealing with pedophiles and Ghana is refusing to name the criminals as such.
Pedophilia is defined as an obsession with children as sex objects. Overt acts, including taking sexually explicit photographs, molesting children, and exposing one's genitalia to children are all crimes.
Pedophilia is also commonly treated as a mental illness, and the pedophile is often released onl to repeat the crimes or escalate the activity to the level of murder.
Dr. Osei said Ghana is criminalizing all offences, including defilement, some of which may be a psychiatric condition and not a criminal condition.
Dr. Osei explained that since pedophilia is a subconscious personality development or a psychological makeup a person forms as he grow up, perpetrators of defilement need to be assessed to determine if they are really pedophiles.
An assessment can include talking to relatives and friends about the persons history, he said. He admits, though, that certainly a good number of defilers found may actually be pedophiles, as pedophilia is just one of the abnormal types of sexual activity.
He added that other abnormal sexual activity include a preference for animals, feces, etc. However, Dr. Osei said that others may be defiling under-aged females not for sexual pleasures, but because they have been fed with the wrong information.
"Some people think that if you are HIV positive and you go in for a young girl or a virgin, you could be cured. Others also do it just because they want to have an adventure."
He added that although it is not impossible, pedophilia is difficult to treat, as such persons need to be taken through a whole kind of behaviour therapy.
"Generally, there are lots of loopholes in our system. Unlike developed countries, there are no security psychiatric units within the prisons which provide reformed training and psychiatric treatment."
Consequently, he said, such convicts come out of prison only to repeat their crime."Dr. Osei called for a revision of the law so that such people can be assessed.
He said it is dangerous for Ghana to be putting a good number of people in prison as criminals while ignoring psychiatric treatment, which is a disservice to the perpetrator and society at large.
Proper methods of handling such cases need to be put in place, he said.
"The idea is not to imprison the person because he has committed a crime, but we need to revise our laws and deal with it as (a mental illness). The fact is that if you assess and he is found to be a pedophile then you treat him as such."
Dr. Osei said he hopes that when the National Identification System becomes operational and the biometric data of the citizenry imputed, it will help Ghana to solve the problem.
A source at the Accra office of DOVSSU told Public Agenda that the unit is unable to keep track of perpetrators of defilement after their conviction because there is no mechanism to do so. Complicating the matter is the poor addressing system in the country as a whole.
"It makes things difficult because after their release from prison society needs to be aware of their history so they can be alert," said the source, who asked not to be identified.
More stringent laws and greater enforcement of those laws, said Mr. OKrah, will discourage pedophile and become a deterrent to the crime.
A legal associate at the Centre for Public Interest Law, Mr. Kissi Agyebeng, argued that the issue is not about what to call the sexual deviancy, rather, he said, the most important thing is that there is a law that prohibits pedophilia with a seven-year minimum penalty and 25-year maximum confinement.
"Although there have been bold attempts by officialdom to deal with the issue, it could be better."
Mr. Okrah agrees, adding that overall Ghana is doing a "good" job in addressing the issue of defilement.
"We have laws on defilement and rape that are there. Now we have specialized enforcement institutions (DOVVSU, the police anti-human trafficking division) which have a bias for the victim. However, it's one thing establishing such institutions and making laws and it's another thing to provide the resources," he said.
"The government needs to strengthen the institutional capacity not only in terms of logistics but the human resources, in terms of training, for them to be able to detect the issues. So, when I say that Ghana is doing well, there is a lot of room for improvement.
"Meanwhile, reports of defilement are reported almost daily in the nation's newspapers.
The Daily Guide newspaper reported last month that a 24-year-old fisherman allegedly defiled a 7-year-old girl at New Takoradi in the Western Region.
In another report, the newspaper reported that 44-year-old Eric Engman was arrested by Nima Police in Accra for allegedly defiling five girls ranging in age from 6 to 8.And Public Agenda in its Friday edition published a report of a 20-year-old man, Yaw Nyatseh of Sankore, near Kukuom in the Asunafo South district, who was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in hard labour for defiling two teenagers.
Public Agenda also reported that a 24-year-old man was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in hard labour after pleading guilty to a charge of defiling a 10-year-old pupil.
In a 2005 United Nations survey of 2,011 women from throughout Ghana, 6 percent of the women said they had been defiled before.
Seventy-eight percent of the perpetrators, the women in the survey reported, were either close relatives, acquaintances or family friends.In the same survey, of the 1,035 males who participated, 52 percent said men have sex with very young girls because of weak morals.
Fourteen percent thought that men who do that are opportunists, 13 percent said the men lack self respect and 8 percent thought that such men are not normal and may have psychological problems.
The survey, "Violence Against Women: The Ghanaian Case," was coordinated by the United Nations' Division for the Advancement of Women.
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