Youth harvest foundation, a Ghanaian Non-governmental Organization based in the Upper East region has made both material and cash donations to a defiled Victim in the Bongo district of the Upper East region.
The 12-year old victim is said to have been defiled by her biological father and she is currently battling with post traumatic stress disorders.
The Bongo District Social Welfare office earlier rescued the girl when the incident occurred and has been managing her after she was discharged from the Bongo District hospital.
Khadija Hamidu, the program officer for the Youth Harvest Foundation in an interview told word news that her outfit with an interest in human Rights issues among others decided to move to the rescue of the victim following a publication by mywordfmonline.com
“As part of their visit with the Social Welfare when we went to see her,our outfit gave out some items for her daily use and her up keep just to make sure that we support their efforts because it is not easy taking care of such a person out of the family house, so the organization had to get some items to give to the caretaker to support her up keep and recovery.
Although the NGO will not disclose the exact amount of cash donated to the victim, they say that they are doing everything within their means to make sure that the victim is fine “ these are items the office put together that we should send them to her, so I can not tell what the amount is . But the items included food items, some provisions and cash amount in an envelope to support her”.
The Youth Harvest Foundation officials were however happy upon seeing her responding to treatment.
“We were very excited when we heard about the fact that the case have been reported to the court, so we saw the need to go and see the girl to find out how she is recovering, from the trauma she went through and also appreciate the efforts of the State institutions like Social Welfare, the Ghana Education Services and also the caretaker who supported her up to this point, we wanted to meet them and appreciate their efforts so that they know that their efforts have been commended and they should do more, because most often, some of these cases are kept quiet especially because it is her father, we are happy that they have taken up the effort to report the case and had medical treatment for the girl” Khadija Hamidu noted
She added “when we went and we met her. she was doing very fine , we interacted with her and she was happy we came to see her, she is still in her recovery process, she isn’t fully recovered, but we are praying that with the support she is getting from the counsellors and clinical psychologist and also her caretakers making sure she is eating very well and getting good sleep, so we hope she recover very quickly”
Khadija Hamidu however, express worries about how family members of the suspect are putting pressure on the judge to release the case for out of court settlement.
“It is unfortunate to hear that the family is giving pressure to the judge, it is very unfortunate because if you look at what the girl has gone through, the trauma she suffered, to the extend that she even lost her speech it tells you that it was very severe for a girl of her age, so for the family to intervene again to settle it in the house is very unfortunate, so we are not happy about that when we also heard it, so we are hoping that this case will be opened in August, and we will get know what is going to happen to the suspect.”
So we pray that they will fast track the whole process and give perpetrators the needed prosecution so that this girl will be relieved. So until this man is prosecuted, this girl will not be fine and won’t get the full recovery. She won’t feel free to walk around like she used to do and enjoy her childhood life.”
She called on the Ghana police service to prosecute suspects who are alleged to have defiled young girls.
The case has been adjourned to the 30th August 2022 after it was referred to the Bolgatanga circuit Court. The 62 year-old suspect is yet to secure the service of a lawyer. Mohammed Abibu has been pleading for a bail since his arrest in July this year.
Source: mywordfmonline.com Gaspard Ayuureneeya.