The President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), Anthony Forson Jr., has been accused of raping a Canada-based Ghanaian lawyer, Kuukuwa Andam in 2012.
![Graça Machel was born in 1945 [CGTN]](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf8,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg'%20width%3D'100'%20height%3D'100'%20data-ring-placeholder%3D'1'%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E "Graça Machel was born in 1945 [CGTN]")
In a Facebook post, Ms Andam said that she has lodged a formal complaint against Mr Forson in Washington DC, USA.
Ms Andam narrated how she was raped by two Ghanaian lawyers including the GBA President, Mr. Forson, who allegedly raped her in a Washington DC hotel in 2012.
As part of her allegations, she said that she was also raped by the then Acting Deputy Director of Legal Aid Ghana, Selassie Kofi Fumey when she worked with him as a National Service person.
She recounted that Mr Fumey raped her when she was a virgin and on many different occasions.
In both rape scenarios, she was in a relationship with them at different times. She was in a relationship with Mr Forson for a while before she moved to the US to pursue her masters’ degree program, but they stayed in touch via phone and emails.
“I met Tony at the last BAR conference I attended before I left Ghana to study at Cornell. I left Ghana in August 2012 so it was before that. By the time I met Tony, I was really broken by my relationship with Selassie because it was such an abusive relationship. I just felt like I had become cynical, I just felt the older lawyers would take advantage of you anyway, and there is nothing you could do about it anyway. I already felt like a bad person for dating Selassie so who cares. So once I met him, and he said he wanted to be with me and it seemed he would be to take care of me, I just accepted what he said and went along with it. Before I went to the US, we met a few times and we never actually had sex. But we were physically intimate.”
Ms Andam said in the US she was struggling to raise needed funds for her upkeep since her funding covered tuition and health insurance. She, therefore, asked Mr Forson for help.
“I worked as a cook, a cleaner and other jobs which meant I was falling asleep in class and sick often. I didn’t like all kinds of odd jobs to survive, and I was terrified that I would lose my visa so when Tony got in touch with me, I told him I was having a lot of problems and asked if he could help me with money. And he said he was coming to a conference in Washington Hotel and that I should meet him at that particular hotel so he would sort me out. ”
Ms Andam alleged that Mr Forson raped her after she refused to have sex without a condom in the hotel.
“We both knew what happened that day so I didn’t feel like I had to point out to him again that he raped me. Because we both knew I had said I wanted to get out, that I wasn’t ready to do it now, and he pinned me down. We both knew that I was crying and wincing in pain, so I didn’t think I had to explain to him that he had raped me.”
She shared screenshots of emails exchanged between Mr Forson and her.
According to her the rape left her traumatized and depressed over a long period. She disclosed attempting suicide after the incident.
She added that she did not report the incident immediately because she feared the powerful men involved and the backlash survivors of sexual violence face in the society.
However, she now feels better to share her story after undergoing.
Ms Andam’s courage to mention two powerful men as rapists have been described as the beginning of a Ghanaian #MeToo.
Meanwhile, Mr. Anthony Forson Jnr. has denied the claims.
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