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Former Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection in the erstwhile Mahama administration, Nana Oye Lithur, has called on the Police Administration to investigate and arrest the suspect who allegedly defiled a four-year-old girl at Assin Adadientem in the Central Region.

“The Ghana Police Service must sit up and do its job by investigating and arresting the suspect who allegedly defiled a four-year-old girl at Assin Adadientem in the Central Region,” Mrs. Lithur urged the police. “We are just asking the police: do your job,” she said adding: “The police have a job to do and now the whole of the country is looking up to them, they are being criticised, so, the earlier they sat up to investigate effectively and efficiently the better.”

The alleged perpetrator, whose name has only been given as Kwabena, is on the run after the chief of the town declared him innocent. According to reports, the chief of the town indicated that action cannot be taken against the accused because the community deity says the suspect was innocent.

But speaking on Accra-based Joy FM yesterday, Mrs. Lithur urged the Regional Police Command to take charge and ensure that the District Commanding Officer together with his officers do their job. “It’s as simple as that so, they cannot give excuses; if before they were being lackadaisical about it now they – the IGP, the Regional Commander – should know that eyes are watching them, we are all speaking against them and their credibility, their integrity is at stake and they better just go, investigate and do their job,” she added.

On the same programme, gender activist, Angela Dwamena-Aboagye, said such defilements have become endemic in Ghana. “…it will keep going on, defilement is endemic in this country, sexual assault is endemic, marital violence is endemic, we pretend we don’t know it is going on but it’s all over the place, there is enough research material from all manner of institutions to show that in this country, these things are endemic,” she observed. Reacting to the same issue on Class91.3 FM in Accra yesterday, acting Director at the Department of Childhood at the Ministry Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs. Helena Obeng Asamoah, called for the arrest of the perpetrator. “That is very bad and sometimes in the community they try to protect the offender and then the child suffers.

It is seriously wrong to leave the offender and then let the child suffer, so I think the police have to arrest him…the child doesn’t have to suffer for the man to be set free,” she stated.

There is pressure on the gender ministry to seek justice for the little girl who is currently receiving treatment at the St Francis-Xavier Hospital in Assin Fosu. Meanwhile, reports from a local journalist suggest that defilement is rampant in the Assin Fosu municipality.