Undeniable reasons why defilement of youngsters cannot stop in Ghana

I consider the menace a complete madness because, I am equally or even more potent than some of my fellow men who engage in defiling young girls including babies as young as 3 years. However, I simply cannot imagine myself having sex with any girl below 20 years, even with her consent, let alone without it.

I will be the first to even suggest death sentence for any man who defiles or rapes a youngster, but not those who commit the act through no fault of theirs.

It is not every man who has defiled or raped a youngster that did so purposely because they had lost control over their libido.

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There are men who suffer from a condition known in medicine as paedophilia. According to Wikipedia, “Pedophilia or paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12, criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13. A person who is diagnosed with pedophilia must be at least 16 years old, and at least five years older than the prepubescent child, for the attraction to be diagnosed as pedophilia.

“Pedophilia is termed pedophilic disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), and the manual defines it as a paraphilia involving intense and recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about prepubescent children that have either been acted upon or which cause the person with the attraction distress or interpersonal difficulty.[1] The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) defines it as a sexual preference for children of prepubertal or early pubertal age.”

When I spoke with psychiatric doctor, Desmond Egyir Muna of Ajumako government hospital, he corroborated the position of Wikipedia, saying “the condition is considered in medicine as one of the mental health conditions.”

Also, per my little reading about the act as well as talks with some experts, there is a distinction between paedophilia and sexual violence against youngsters, and that is exactly what this article seeks to draw attention to.

We can use the law to deal with sexual violence against youngster, but not paedophilia. That is what Dr. Desmond Egyir Muna of Ajumako government hospital made me understand.

He explained that, just like schizophrenia and other mental health disorders, men who defile youngsters under the influence of paedophilia need psychiatric treatment rather than imprisonment. And for me, he made sense.

In 2015, a certain Charles Antwi went to an Assemblies of God church with a gun and when he was arrested and questioned, he said he had come there to kill former president John Dramani Mahama who was also in attendance that particular day.

This man was put before an Accra Circuit Court and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. But when later some human rights lawyers filed an appeal against the ruling and it was proven after a psychiatric examination that the man was mentally unstable, he was released following an order by a human rights court overturning the Circuit Court ruling.

Also, barely two weeks ago, a 21-year-old Ghanaian footballer, Solomon Nyantakyi was released from prison after a psychiatric examination following his imprisonment determined that he was mentally sick.

My point is, if paedophilia is also a mental disorder just like the ones whose detection got and still get convicts released from prisons, why do we then continue to put paedophiles in prison?

Dr. Desmond Egyir Muna of Ajumako government hospital told me in an interview that irrespective of how long paedophiles are jailed for, if they don’t undergo psychiatric treatment, they are likely to commit the same crime or even worse after the jail term.

For clarity sake, I am not for a moment suggesting that men who defile youngsters should be left to go scot-free. But how do we distinguish between someone who has committed sexual violence against youngsters and deserves to face the full rigors of the law, and another who committed the same offence, but requires psychiatric treatment instead?

I am a journalist who has written stories on daily basis about defilement and its related imprisonment. I believe public education can be a part of the solution, but let’s not kid ourselves that people are not aware of defilement and the sanctions that are applied to perpetrators. Some have either seen or heard about others being jailed for the offence, but they simply have no option, but to commit same because they are “helpless.”

Currently, the ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has begun moves to make penalties for defilement “stiffer” to help end the menace.

It was on a platform regarding this move that a supreme Court judge, Mrs Sophia Ophelia Adjeibea Adinyira was reported by the GNA to have said that, “Section 101 of Act 29 does not describe defilement as a felony, yet the sentence is severer than that of rape, which is described as a first degree felony, this encourages settlement out of court as section 73 of the Courts Act, 1993, Act 459 promotes reconciliation in criminal cases where the offence does not amount to felony and not aggravated in degree.”

As I have said already, I support stiffening the sanctions of defilement, but how do we ensure that the stiffer sanctions are applied to those who fairly deserve to be sanctioned and stop putting mental health patients in prison?

I am of the humble opinion that the courts should work in collaboration with the various psychiatric institutions in the country to help determine the mental health status of every defilement suspect before the courts give their rulings. This will enable us separate paedophiles from unscrupulous sexual violence perpetrators and deal with them accordingly. This is the only way in my opinion we can proactively address the menace from its root rather than keep reactively putting mad 'men' in prison.

Undeniable reasons why defilement of youngsters cannot stop in Ghana

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