As controversial as the title of this article may be, it represents the true mood of Ghana at the moment, in plain words. It has been triggered by two scandals that happened in our public schools that should make us all bow our heads in shame.
Let me also place on record that this article is not meant to take away anything from the trauma and pain of the victims at the centre of the disgraceful Obuasi SHTS incident. It is to give us all the needed wake-up call.
Back in 2021, I broke the news on air that 19 boys of Kulpi Junior High School in the East Gonja Municipality had been defiled and sodomised by their Social Studies teacher, Natonma Otabil.
The case did not trend. There was no national outrage. There were no statements from high offices, no red armbands, no Bar Association and Paediatric Society issuing press releases. The story was literally ignored until I amplified the voices of the victims and their parents on #JohnniesBite on TV3 New Day and its social handles.
It was that media pressure that eventually forced the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and the Ghana Police Service to act swiftly. Otabil was later convicted by a Tamale Circuit Court and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment. He should soon be out to freedom, but the boys he defiled will still be caged in the prison of trauma.
Later in 2026, 19 girls are alleged to have been defiled and sexually assaulted by their headmaster. Within a few hours, the nation erupted in anger. The Vice President made a statement. The Ghana Bar Association, the Paediatric Society of Ghana, market women, CSOs, political figures and celebrities are demanding justice. A Red Wednesday was declared in solidarity with the girls. Hashtags continue to trend.
Therefore, within the last six years, Ghana has seen two crimes, with two genders, with the same number of victims, with the same vulnerability, from the same public schools that should have been their sanctuaries. Yet, Ghanaians have given them two completely different reactions.
That contrast reveals a dangerous gendered empathy gap that keeps widening. It also mirrors how we treat adult victims. When a woman reports rape, we are more likely to believe her and act quickly on it. However, when a man reports rape or sexual molestation, society’s first instinct is to mock his masculinity, question his sexuality, or humiliate him for not fighting back.
Somehow, we seem to have transferred that toxic adult script onto children. A boy who is sodomised is seen as having lost his manhood and not as a child whose innocence was stolen. Until we confront that, we will continue to have selective justice.
As we champion justice for the girls, let us in brutal honesty ask ourselves this question: are there any differences between the boy child and the girl child who are both future leaders? The answer is a big NO.
You see, when parents or guardians drop off their male or female children at school, they expect teachers to impart knowledge, instill discipline and assist in shaping them to become better adults in society.
They don’t expect them to return home corrupted and traumatised as a result of the growing concern that some Ghanaian schools and classrooms have become hunting grounds for sexual predators. If they do, that is not just a public moral panic situation and talking point. It is a combination of professional misconduct and criminality that cannot be condoned.
Most especially, when the recurrence is exact in terms of numbers: 19 boys in 2021 and 19 girls in 2026, it ceases to be labelled as isolated incidents. It becomes a pattern of institutional failure. To put it bluntly, what we are dealing with is not a bad cocoa pod on an affected tree in a garden. We are dealing with hectares of cocoa farms affected by black pod disease, with no harvest in sight.
Unfortunately, since we live in a country where the next election is more important than the lives of the people who queue to vote, the victims’ pain from both cases quickly got pulled into partisan political trenches. In 2021, some local actors tried to shield the teacher because of political and religious persuasions. In 2026, we are seeing the politics being played out. Politicians and their assigns are rushing to either defend or condemn loudly to score points.
While all the politicisation is ongoing, justice is delayed because people are checking which party will be embarrassed. That has the potential of making justice dependent on the news cycle that travels with the case.
For example, if people believe that it is their outrage and taunting that compelled Vice President Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang to make a statement on the issue, what happens to the children whose abuse did not get such high-profile statements at all? In our attempt to score cheap political points, we make justice a favour granted by the powerful, when forced to be politically correct before the cameras.
Now, if we play political football with what has happened, we risk ‘burying’ the victims twice to stay silent. Mind you, a child’s body does not know NDC from NPP nor does it have a party card.
Generally, the commentary around the Obuasi SHTS incident suggests that there is a lack of trust as a result of recurring incidents that prove the current arrangement in our schools and society does not deter people. Flowing from that is the silencing regime, mocking and loss of interest in school.
Eventually, when the issues blow up, some of the victims may shy away as it happened in the Kulpi case. One of the 19 boys opted out. Are we going to see a repeat of that in the Obuasi SHTS case?
By the way, who else remembers the ‘run-away’ Bole SHS teacher in 2026 and how that matter and similar ones ended? You see, I have always told people that Ghana is not lawless, we are just law-lazy- Lazy in applying the laws we have given to ourselves to keep all of us in check.
Coupled with that is the cliché-like reaction of authorities. We are always left with condemnation, counselling and offering psychological support. To be candid, these are necessary, but they are also very reactive because the various ministries end up appearing like moral voices in a system that demands whips perpetually soaked in kerosene for all offenders.
Can every school have a designated safeguarding lead that checks any suspicious relationship between teacher and under-18 pupils and students?
Can we empower students to immediately report both internally and externally — through a toll-free or WhatsApp line and anonymous report boxes — to trigger independent investigations? So that if the school is found in a cover-up scheme, it is made to face the law, including a shutdown? It is important not to have snitches at the receiving end of these complaint centres. I am talking about the type that puts informants and whistleblowers in harm’s way.
Can we also discipline naughty children who may want to abuse the system to raise false alarms against teachers they dislike?
Can we safely say that any school official or relative who interferes in order to solve the matter at home must be speedily declared an accomplice?
In the Obuasi SHTS instance, we are told that the Safe Space Focal Person reported the incident in February 2026. The system ignored her until we all woke up to smell the unpleasant coffee later in October. How is that a working system that can be trusted in its current form?
That and many other things are good reasons why the Police and Courts must move quickly in order not to allow the trauma to compound. This quick and necessary action is not about vengeance. It tilts more towards stopping the predator from finding new victims. It also helps to preserve evidence and tells other children that silence is not the answer. Last but not least, it sends a strong message to every predator in every school or classroom.
Trauma support and counselling must be long-term therapy and not just a one-off session. Therapy is not an event and victims must go through it thoroughly if we really want real results.
The reason is, child abusers always threaten their victims with all manner of things, including harm and death. Now, the more the victims see their tormentors walking free, the more their trauma intensifies. Psychologists can do their best to make bad memories fade, but the trauma of the threatened victim will remain forever if he or she is rushed through therapy.
Counselling should therefore be a four-way affair that covers the victim, the parents, the school and society. We must do this because we don’t want a situation where the victim feels cowed by loneliness and parents beat their wards for disgracing them after the child has suffered such an ordeal.
You don’t want colleagues stigmatising the victim and making life unbearable for them to heal. You also don’t want members of society rushing to make loud, uninformed and hurtful pronouncements.
Then there is the media. Both traditional and new media have a duty to report what is news. However, the media must be encouraged to report in a manner that doesn’t re-traumatise victims. They must look beyond clickbait, likes, followership and monetisation in order to be duty-bound not to turn victims into unhealthy debate topics.
When that happens, callers and texters may make insensitive comments or pose unsavoury questions. Instead, the media must create spaces for experts like child psychologists and social welfare officers to educate parents on danger signs and available reporting channels.
Additionally, panel members must be well-versed in child protection communication, not loud-mouth commentators with sensational language that is not survivor-centred. If we don’t control how we talk, we will scare the next victims into silence because of what they heard in the media.
When a child is defiled, we should see beyond a victim in the news. We should see a child with pain and nightmares, with bleeding and possible infections, with shame, with a class filled with whispers that he or she must return to every day, with the high risk of dropping out and so on. How must society handle such situations without jeopardising their future? That should inform media productions and presentations.
It is therefore worrying that while the Police CID is still investigating, we have already heard the matter and concluded based on the ‘evidence’ in the media and against the rules of natural justice. Before DNA results are finalised, we have already sentenced whoever is standing trial on TikTok and Facebook. So what if?
Ghanaians are angry. They have every right to be angry. But you may be wondering what the rush to be the first to be outraged does.
First of all, it has the potential of destroying evidence. Some, not all of the victims and witnesses will be moved by what is trending and may alter their stories to fit the contaminated and politicised ones being circulated.
Secondly, it prejudices the case. For example, a good lawyer could go to court and say that his client may not get a fair trial because of the public outcry, pressure and commentary. The case could hit a snag and the much-needed justice may never come.
Thirdly, it re-traumatises the victims. Imagine a young lady or man constantly hearing their ordeal and bodies being debated publicly by millions of people just so they can win a useless argument?
I find it particularly disgusting and disappointing when a girl is assaulted and comments such as “what was she wearing?”, “why was she at his bungalow?”, “she is spoilt”, “she is a born one”, etc. are made by adults who are supposed to know better. What is sexually attractive about a schoolgirl? Is anybody’s appearance or weakness consent to be abused?
In like manner, when a boy is sodomised, we do worse. We silence him. We laugh uncomfortably. We say “it is an abomination” and then we forget. In Kulpi, the teacher was a church elder who “prays a lot” and leads school worship. So, the initial reaction was to dismiss the claims of the boys. What does that do? It breeds boys who are sodomised into broken men who carry that secret and burden to their graves without getting justice.
On a more serious note, both responses protect the predator. The first blames the victim and the second erases the perpetrator from the picture.
Going forward, we need to have an automatic child abuser criminal referral system that must be triggered within 48 hours, over and above any internal committee work and family intervention. That system should be forensic, with fast-tracked DNA and other medical examination processes fully funded by the state.
The era of subtle protection of predators through transfers and interdiction is equivalent to abuser laundering and it must stop. Anybody who defiles a child should not only be interdicted, suspended or dismissed. That person outrightly belongs in Nsawam and not in another school.
Effective immediately, servitude disguised as bungalow duties by students must not continue to be normalised. It must be banned. This will ensure that students do not become low-hanging fruits in a feeding programme for predators, while the entire school is given the impression that they are protected when offering service free of charge.
Students, on the other hand, must be emboldened to speak up and learn not to be cowed into hiding or staying silent. To that extent, anybody who attempts to cover up or withdraw the matter to discuss and settle at home must be seen as an accomplice.
Ghana must not look away when the victim is a boy as well. Recently, a ride-hailing app driver made the news with claims that he had been raped by three ladies and given some money as compensation. Instead of going to the police, he irresponsibly turned to the media. He became an instant butt of jokes, with some persons even asking to know where it happened and if they could also be raped for the same amount. Flip the coin and put a lady in there with three men and let it hit the news and wait for the feisty reactions.
Authorities need to do more if the current system they superintend over is to be trusted. Enough of the reactions, time to be proactive. Our churches and mosques must also take a cue and use their pulpits to spread the word.
Strictly speaking, schools must be havens and not hunting grounds. To make this message clear enough, we must take our sexual offenders register seriously, such that anyone convicted of sexual offences against a child is banned for life from getting close to children. Again, no teacher should be allowed alone in a closed classroom or office with a single child.
Each year, as it is done for open day, there has to be an annual safeguarding audit of every school by an independent team specially set up for that purpose. Parents must also be allowed to access the report at designated places.
The teacher’s marker and cane must not in any way be replaced by the teacher’s bed. That should not be the perversion of our time.
More importantly, we must stop ranking vulnerability immediately. A girl child is as vulnerable as a boy child. Poverty and a careless society make both more vulnerable. Our task, therefore, is to protect both genders. So for me, the real Red Wednesday should have been for all 38 children: being the 19 boys of Kulpi whose dent in life remains, and the 19 girls of Obuasi SHTS whose future we must now fight for in a united manner.
If we build a future where we only protect girls because society feels girls are weak, we cause two problems: we fail the boys, and we insult the girls by framing their protection as charity for the weak, rather than a right for all children. In any case, are the girls not being protected for the boys to marry in future? So if we shield the girls and expose the boys, what kind of fathers and husbands are we raising for our nation?
Justice must not have a gender and it must be served now!
By Johnnie Hughes
