A 16-year-old girl who was involved in elopement after her BECE final paper has been rescued by Norsaac at Kayoro in the Upper East region.
Blessing (not her real name) was rescued and has since been reunited with her family.
On August 21, 2022, the innocent girl had written her final BECE paper and was returning home from the examination centre which was located outside her community, and was forcefully whisked away to be married by a man in her community.
All efforts by the parents of the girl to rescue the adolescent girl proved futile.
The case was then reported to the Paramount Chief of the traditional area of which the man still refused to release the girl to her family even after he was invited to the chief’s palace.
Blessing’s situation is common among adolescent girls in the Upper East Region’s Kassena Nankana District.
The rescue
After several unsuccessful attempts to retrieve the girl from the man’s home, the chief advised the family to report the situation to the appropriate legal authorities.
With the work and visibility of Norsaac trained Legal Literacy Volunteers (LLVs) on the Power to Youth (PtY) programme, the parents sought their intervention to assist the family in reporting the case to the appropriate legal institutions in the district.
The LLVs advised the girl’s family and supported them to report the incident to the Chana Police Station after which the said man was arrested along with his colleagues who accompanied him to forcefully carry the adolescent girl to his abode.
After the man was arrested by the police, the adolescent girl was rescued and returned to her family, receiving some psychological and counselling support from the department of social welfare and Norsaac.
Social welfare was the first point of call to assist the needs of children/adolescents in this situation.
The perpetrator was later transferred to the District Police Command in Navrongo for further action by the appropriate department –DOVVSU.
Issah Abukari, Project Officer at Norsaac, indicated, “we are very interested in this case, and we will closely monitor it to ensure that the culprit is dealt with by the appropriate laws to serve as a deterrent to others in the various communities.”
The Programmes Manager of the PtY program at Norsaac, Nancy Yeri indicated “these are moments of joy for us on the project. The PtY program seeks to put an end to harmful practices such as child marriage in all forms, and in this case, elopement.
It is a criminal act, per the Constitution of Ghana and progressive chiefs and community members like the case of Kayoro will continue to set strides that will send a strong signal to future preparators.
By Christopher Amoako|UE/R|Onuaonline.com
