Child prostitution high in Cape Coast

Cape Coast Metropolitan Director of Social Welfare, Mr. Daniel Wallace Acheampong, has stated that child prostitution was gaining notoriety in Cape Coast in the Central Region.

He attributed the development to the high rate of poverty and deprivation in some parts of the area.

According to him, the menace which is predominantly in the coastal areas in the metropolis was fast becoming a pandemic.

To this end, he called for urgent pragmatic steps to bring it to the barest minimum.

Addressing journalists in Cape Coast last week, Mr. Acheampong pointed out that about 10% of teenage girls along the coastal communities were involved in prostitution, a situation which he said, had increased teenage pregnancy in those areas.

The director of social welfare in Cape Coast mentioned Ntsin, Gyagyano, Kwaprow, Amanful, Brofoyedur and Gyagyamu as some of the coastal areas where child prostitution was very rampant.

Mr. Acheampong alleged that 20 teenage girls in the prostitution business were spotted writing the just-ended Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in Cape Coast alone, making the situation much more worrying.

He lamented that elders and parents of these teenagers did not even see anything wrong with what the young girls were doing.

“We found out that most of these parents and guardians even depend on the teens to feed their families, thereby encouraging them to offer themselves for sex for sometimes as low as GH? 1,” he emphasised.

“Some of the teenagers we talked to even told us their clients sometimes sleep with them on credit while others simply refuse to pay after having had sex with them,” he further lamented.

In view of this, he said his outfit was intensifying social education to sensitise teenage girls as well as parents on the consequences of their actions to enable them go back to school.

He indicated that social welfare has since reached out to 15 communities where clubs have been formed to tackle the menace as well as prevent others from indulging in it.

He, therefore, charged chiefs, opinion leaders and parents in the affected areas to be vigilant and supervise their wards to prevent them from going astray.