The Executive Director of the ARK Foundation, Dr Angela Dwamena-Aboagye, has called on state institutions to take greater responsibility for educating children about sexual abuse and establishing effective reporting systems, saying civil society organisations cannot be expected to shoulder the burden indefinitely.
She said safeguarding policies must be integrated into the daily operations of schools and public institutions to ensure children know where to report abuse and what action will follow when they speak up.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show during a discussion on the alleged sexual abuse case involving the headmaster of Obuasi Senior High Technical School (SHTS), Dr Dwamena-Aboagye questioned why non-governmental organisations continued to bear much of the responsibility for educating communities about sexual abuse and laws protecting children.
“How long can the ARK Foundation or FIDA or AWLA or whatever go around sending laws to schools, to communities, teaching, training, sensitising? How long?” she asked.
She said state institutions should have incorporated such education into their policies and established systems to ensure sustained implementation, rather than relying on occasional campaigns by civil society organisations.
“By now, our state institutions should have picked this up in our policies and start running with it,” she said.
Dr Dwamena-Aboagye argued that integrating safeguarding into institutional practices did not necessarily require substantial financial resources but demanded commitment and effective systems.
She said children should know where to turn when they experienced or witnessed sexual abuse and be confident that their complaints would trigger an established process.
“Where children know that if this happens, I can go here, I can see this person, this is the system that will be kicked into place. And it will go through until the end, and we get a resolution or whatever it is,” she said.
She stressed that child protection should not depend on the availability of an NGO to intervene or whether a case had attracted public attention.
“This doesn’t take money. It takes commitment. It takes systematising. And then once it is into the system, it starts running,” she added.
Dr Dwamena-Aboagye also called for a change in attitudes that discourage children from reporting abuse, including the tendency to blame victims for failing to resist their abusers.
She noted that power imbalances between children and adults in authority could make it difficult for students to report misconduct, particularly when they feared punishment or other consequences.
She said clear reporting procedures and sustained education would help children understand their rights and identify trusted people who could assist them.
Her comments follow a JoyNews investigation by Manasseh Azure Awuni, which revealed that municipal authorities, education officials and other influential figures had received reports concerning alleged sexual abuse by the headmaster of Obuasi Senior High Technical School, Zakaria Abdulai, months before his suspension.