Letters to the Editor: Prevent child sexual abuse

Dear Editor, Sexual violence and exploitation against children is a worrying trend with the worst victims being adolescent girls. Children are defiled, indecently assaulted and harassed.

Child sexual violence ranges from the inducement or coercion of a child to engage in any unlawful sexual activity; the exploitative use of a child in prostitution or other unlawful sexual practices and the exploitative use of children in pornographic performance and materials.

Our criminal laws provide severe punishment for offenders of child sexual abuse, especially for those who defile children.

Parents, teachers, caregivers and children themselves have a responsibility to help protect children from sexual abuse. Children should be educated to understand that there are bad adults just as there are bad children and so, they should avoid getting too close to people of questionable characters.

The justice system, which starts from the police, also has a bigger responsibility to help prevent the increasing rate of child sexual abuse. They should be quick in the handling of such cases and ensure that perpetrators are duly punished.

Let’s prevent child sexual violence and exploitation.

Abena Gyanwa,
Accra.
• Children are defiled, indecently assaulted and harassed.

Help street kids
Dear Editor, Anytime I’m in a car in Accra, I see a lot of children on the streets. The hours I see them suggests that they don’t go to school.

This is because if they do, they would be in school during those hours I see them.  Some of them are so young and all that they do is to hold on to the dresses of passersby and beg them for money.

For me, I think the sight of these children on the streets does not speak well of our country because anybody can conclude that we are a country that does not care for and protect her children.

The fact that such children live on the streets poses a risk to them because not only can their education be affected but their health.

That is why it is important that the nation and individuals alike find a solution to the problem of children living on the streets. The social welfare system in the country should be strengthened in such a way that we won’t find children living on the streets. Where children end up on the street, the social welfare department should be able to rescue them and reunite them with their parents where possible.

If they are unable to do so, then the social welfare shelters around the country should be resourced enough so that when the children are sent there, they would stay. The place should be made conducive to them. Non governmental organisations can come in to help by providing skills to these children who are rescued from the streets. For those who want to go back to school, the government could enrol them in school. Let’s all come together to provide a better future for children.

Panful Essel Wilma,
Tema Parents’ Association School,
Tema.