14-year-old girl pregnant after being defiled, drops out of school

A fourteen-year-old-girl who was defiled by a boy at Anomabo in the Central Region has been left to her fate with a six-month-old pregnancy.

Efforts to get justice for the girl, [name withheld], has proved futile as her uncle who was leading the case has died.

The condition of the girl has forced her to drop out of school. She is currently being taken care of by her unemployed mother who is nursing a baby.

The girl told TV3’s Adwoa Adobea-Owusu she was influenced and forced to have sex with the boy at Patasi, a place at Anomabo where nefarious activities of adolescents take place.

She said the boys at Patasi usually invite pretty innocent girls in the town to the place and have sex with them after which the victims are given money.

In her case, she said bad company led her to the place.

“I didn’t know how to have sex; I was very innocent but my friends influenced me,” she told our correspondent.

“A boy invited me to Patasi and forced his way to have sex with me. It was so painful,” she recounted.

According to the victim, she discovered her pregnancy after two months of morning sickness.

On discovering the pregnancy, the girl led her mother to the house of man who defiled her but unfortunately they did not find him there.

The victim’s uncle who was pushing to ensure justice for the girl died; a situation that has also caused the matter to die, and the little girl now left to her fate.

In the circumstance, her mother said she would only have to wait for her daughter to deliver before thinking of the next step to take.

Meanwhile, the girl told our correspondent that she hopes to return to school after delivery.

Anomabo has over the years contributed significantly to teenage pregnancy ratings of the Central Region that consistently placed second in the teenage pregnancy prevalence rate in Ghana.

In 2017, the Central Region recorded 126 cases of teenage pregnancy involving girls between between the ages of 10-15.

The Queen mother of the Anomabo Traditional Area, Nana Dabor puts the blame on the failure of parents to educate their children about sex.

She observed cases of defilement are usually reported to the police once they are brought to her attention, saying the defilement and rape when it comes to our notice, it is beyond us so we have to direct the case to the Police”

Attempts to educate the community on the risks of teenage pregnancy, she said, have proven futile over the years.

According to the queenmother, parents feel adamant whenever they are invited for talks on teenage pregnancy, noting, “when they are invited they ask you ‘are you the one taking care of my daughter”.

To help stem the tide of teenage pregnancy, a programme dubbed “who got the teenager pregnant?” has been introduced in schools to educate boys on early sex and its related risks.