A Ghanaian man cannot be raped – Legal practitioner

Legal practitioner, Mr Lamtiig Apanga has clarified that in accordance with the laws in the country concerning rape, a man cannot be raped by a woman or a fellow man, as the law focuses on penile penetration.

According to Mr Lamtiig, the law by definition says that only a female can be raped, so a man cannot go to the police to file a rape case.

“The law as it states, section 97 of Acts 29, the act of the criminal offence defines rape to mean the natural carnal knowledge of a woman or a female who is sixteen years and above without her consent. So it specifically says a female. So by definition, the law says that it is only a female who can be raped. And so a man cannot be raped per our law. That is what the law says, so a man cannot run to the police station and say that I have been raped. He cannot run to the police station and make claims against a fellow man even if a fellow man rapes him,” he said in an interview with GhanaWeb Reporter, Barbara Esinam Bonney on June 17, 2020.

He stressed that the law clearly highlights that rape involves natural carnal knowledge, and penile penetration is the only recognized carnal knowledge in the country.

“Once it says natural, it has to be natural, and natural here means that penile penetration of the vagina by the penis. The way the law has been made, it is not possible for a man to say a woman has raped him,” he stated.

Mr Lamtiig, however, added that on the other hand both males and females can take legal action towards cases of defilement, and perpetrators could get a jail term of not less than six months.

“Section 103 on Indecent assault clearly states that whoever indecently assaults any person shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and shall be liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment of not less than six months. A person commits the offence of indecent assault if without the consent of the other person he forcibly makes any sexual bodily contact with that other person or sexually violates the body of that other person in any manner not amounting to carnal knowledge or unnatural carnal knowledge,” he concluded.