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It has come to light that between 2019 and 2021, 51.9% of females in Ghanaian Senior High Schools suffered sexual assaults.
This was contained in a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Girls Excellent Movement (GEM).
According to the report which was titled: “Sheltered yet Exposed”, 54.3% of the assaulted girls were between the ages of 17 and 22 while 45.7% were in the 11 and 16 age brackets.
The report went further to disclose that the assaults were perpetrated on the victims by their friends, family friends, schoolmates, teachers and strangers.
Of all the categories of the perpetrators, friends topped the chart with 24%, family friends-12%, schoolmates-12 %, teachers-10%, and strangers, nine per cent.
Juliana Ama Kplorfia, the Founder and Executive Director of GEM, while speaking at an event organised by the Center for Social Justice (CSJ) with support from the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Ghana, cited uncles, cousins, neighbours, fathers and fathers-in-law as the other groups of perpetrators of sexual assault on SHS girls.
She blamed the developments of academic, financial and mental challenges as some of the factors that exposed the learners to such assaults, which left some of them with depression, trauma, bipolar disorder, anxiety and panic attacks. She added that some of the victims end up dropping out of school.
Kplorfia entreated the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to resource their counselling units in the schools to work effectively to save vulnerable girls from predators.
She also emphasized the need to make rape and sexual harassment reports free of charge as well as remove taxes on sanitary pads, and then make the freely available for female students.
She urged parents to keep their eyes on their children to avoid them falling prey to sexual predators.
credit:pulsegh
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