The Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit of the Ghana Police Service (DOVVSU) has bemoaned how some parents and even police officers are making undue financial benefits from defilement cases.
According to head of Education and Research at the DOVVSU, Supt. Freeman Tettey, some parents shamefully obtain financial advantage from sex related crimes inflicted on their children.
He -said this despicable conduct by the parents makes it difficult for his outfit to prosecute a number of defilement cases, because parents enter into settlement terms with perpetrators without the knowledge of the police.
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This, he said puts investigating officers in a state of frustration and with little or no chances of prosecuting the cases to the end. Superintendent Freeman Tettey made this revelation on Accra-based Joy FM.
He attributed the situation to the fact that victims of defilement are children and “decisions are always taken for them” including filling of medical forms to confirm the violence committed against them.
He said some of the parents and guardians “use the medical form as a bargaining chip" to make money.
“…so, these are some of the things that affect our ability to prosecute some of the cases,” Freeman Tettey told Kojo Yankson, host of the programme.
“Sometimes parents go into agreement with perpetrators to settle them for the offence against their children and after they are paid, the parents drop the charge and then relocate with the victims.
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“When the victim reports a case and the parent decides to relocate, there is nothing you can do about that…,” Sup. Freeman Tettey said.
He pointed out that the relocation “creates a problem for us” and in instances where they are able to trace the victims’ location, the senior police officer said, “cooperation becomes a problem.”
Supt. Tettey has however cautioned against such practices saying, “It is a crime to accept payment to drop a charge. They are all criminal because that impedes our investigations.”
What is even more disturbing of Freeman Tettey’s revelations is the mention of the fact that some officers as also being complicit in this heartless act, collecting as much as GHȻ500 from parents in order to work on the cases.
He was however quick to add that, “there are instances that when we find our officers wanting [liable]…we deal with them.”
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Attempting allay a further public loss of confidence in the police service, he said, “A transformation office has been established to put measures in place that will make it possible to track all cases right from the reporting stage to the end of investigations.”
Meanwhile, a Psychiatrist with the Ajumako Government Hospital, Desmond Egyir Muna has advocated that men who defile children should not be imprisoned. He told Pulse News that such men need psychological treatment rather than prosecution and imprisonment.