Accra, Aug.05, GNA – Ms Regina Asamoah, News Editor at Atinka TV, will on Saturday August 06, 2022, premier “Delayed Justice”, a new documentary on a girl who was defiled and paralysed.
The documentary showcases a six-year-long legal battle to seek justice for her after she was victimized and left in that condition in 2015 by her school mate’s father.
The documentary will be premiered on Atinka TV at 17:00 hours.
The documentary, according to a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra encouraged families to report defilement cases, discouraged out of court settlement and called for speedy prosecution of defilement cases.
On July 30, 2015, Ms Asamoah first broke a story of a 10-year-old girl who was left bedridden after she was defiled twice by a man whom she alleged was her schoolmate’s father.
The girl, who was a class one pupil of Anyaa D/A Government School, stayed with her Aunt at Anyaa, a suburb of Accra in the Greater Accra Region.
An initial Interaction with the girl on her sick bed at the Korle-Bu Children’s Ward revealed that the suspect defiled her in a bush on July 14 and 17, 2015 respectively on her way to school.
The man known to the victim as “Jessica Papa” (Jessica’s Father) was an auto mechanic who lived in the area.
The statement said pediatricians at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital confirmed in their report that she was bed-ridden due to the force penetration when she was defiled.
The family, however, later resorted to herbal medication due to lack of finances to continue the medication at the Hospital.
Her mother (name withheld) now deceased, in an earlier interview in June, 2019 explained that they had to resort to herbal medicine because they couldn’t raise an amount of GHS120,000 for their daughter to undergo a surgery.
After several attempts, the victim can now walk but falls at the least attempt to walk fast.
The victim’s Aunt (name withheld) said the victim had become traumatised and would not go on any errand that took her far away from the house. The family had to relocate to psychologically help her recover from the trauma.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is an important agreement by countries who have promised to protect children’s rights and Ghana is no exception.
Article 19 talks about protection from violence. It says Government must protect Children from violence, abuse, and being neglected by anyone.
Article 34 also calls for protection from sexual abuse and charges government to protect children from sexual exploitation (being taken advantage of) and sexual abuse, including forcing children to have sex for money or making sexual pictures or films of teens. To achieve these, victims of abuse must be guaranteed justice.
Ghana’s Children Act 1998 tasks parents and guardians to protect the child from neglect, discrimination, violence, abuse, exposure to physical and moral hazards and oppression.
This is a collective action that needs the complement of the Judiciary and Ghana Police Service to ensure speedy trial for persons who violate this right of the child.
Regina Asamoah is the 2019 Best Female Journalist who for the past 13 years, has made the art of storytelling a lifestyle rather than a job.
Through her reports, several defiled girls have received justice, with some being put back to school on sponsorship.
Her award-winning documentaries have generated national discourse and yielded positive results over the years.
Her Documentary titled; ‘MISSING CHILDREN’ which premiered in May 2021 has helped reunite over 160 missing children with their families.
At the 2022 Ghana Young Achievers Awards, she received the topmost Award – Young Achiever and Activist of the Year, for her “Missing Children” Documentary Series.
Source: Ghana News Agency
