Creator of Moving Masculinity, Esther Amarh, has described the alleged sexual abuse of female students at Obuasi Senior High Technical School as evidence of a systemic failure in Ghana’s child protection system.
She says the failure of authorities to act on complaints against the suspended headmaster, Zakaria Abdulai, until a media report by JoyNews raises serious questions about the effectiveness of systems meant to protect students from sexual harassment and abuse in schools.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Middaynews on Thursday, October 15, Ms Amarh called for collective outrage over what she described as a persistent failure to protect children, insisting that accountability must extend beyond the alleged perpetrator to officials who failed to respond to complaints.
“As a nation, we should be collectively outraged by this ongoing systemic failure to protect girls, children, and boys. This sexual abuse often happens to boys as well,” she said.
Her comments follow a JoyNews investigation by Manasseh Azure Awuni, which found that municipal authorities, education officials and other influential figures had received reports about alleged sexual abuse involving female students months before Mr Abdulai’s suspension.
Ms Amarh said the fact that action appeared to follow public exposure rather than the initial complaints was particularly troubling.
“The only tool that these authorities paid attention to was national shame and exposure, not conscience, not morality, not the right of those girls to have an education, and not their own structures and systems,” she said.
She questioned the effectiveness of existing procedures for handling allegations of sexual harassment, assault, defilement and rape involving students, arguing that institutions must be held accountable when they fail to respond appropriately.
“There must be consequences, not just for what the teacher or the individual did. There must be consequences for inaction. There must be an audit done of exactly who did not do what,” she added.
She also proposed sanctions that could affect the salaries and promotion prospects of officials found to have neglected their duties, arguing that disciplinary measures must be strong enough to deter similar failures.
“I have worked on these issues for over seven, eight, nine years, and it is exactly the same scenario: a girl reports, inaction, silence, no action. It escalates, more girls, more lives ruined, more education interrupted,” she said.
Ms Amarh further urged Ghana to treat sexual abuse in schools as a national public health crisis rather than isolated incidents affecting individual students.