Feature: My Height Does Not Tell My Age

In a country where the majority of the people have no birth certificates, how does one determine the age of a victim of rape or defilement.

In soccer where age is stipulated for players in the junior categories, there have been reports of people being over-aged but deceiving the authorities because of their height. In the civil service, there have been many cases of people not wanting to go on retirement because they have what is called "baby faces".

How, therefore, do the police determine the age of a girl, who has been defiled or a woman raped. Is it by her looks or what the parents say is her age.

Are people not being jailed because a conspiracy to extract money had failed? The task of the prosecution is to prove beyond all reasonable doubts that the person standing trial is actually guilty and should be punished according to the laws of the land.

The onus, therefore, rest on the prosecution to make sure that no innocent person is made to suffer for a crime not committed. Every right thinking person is happy when justice is carried out and criminals are dealt with accordingly.

A disturbing phenomenon, however, appears to be emerging, especially in rape and defilement cases where some persons accused of defiling minors are being wrongly charged and given a raw deal. In some defilement cases, the actual ages of the "supposed victim" of defilement is reduced to make sure that the accused is actually charged with defiling a minor.

Some parents try to frame up the accused person so that a relationship involving their daughter, which they do not want would be broken.

These days, despite the vigorous prosecution of accused persons, evidence is emerging that some of the victims of defilement are not minors as they are being made to appear. Recently at one of the circuit tribunals in Accra, an accused was charged with defiling a minor.

The accused, a little over 20, was shocked to death when the prosecutor said the victim was eleven years old. According to the accused, the victim has been his girlfriend for the past two years.

The mother of the victim was aware of the relationship but did not approve of it. To the accused, reducing the age of the victim and bringing him before the court with charges of defilement was a ploy to break the relationship with the connivance of the police and make life miserable for him after unfruitful attempts to separate them.

The truth of the matter was that the supposed minor in this particular case was actually 17 years old. Most victims of defilement cases are not exposed in court and some parents and guardians have taken advantage of this to exploit the situation to their advantage.

What is the meaning of all these? Is it that the prosecution is not checking their facts well and are not ascertaining the correct ages of the victims? Can they not demand the birth certificates of these victims when there is a controversy over age?

Why do the police accept only what guardians and parents tell them? It is only fair that any person brought before a law court is made to suffer for the wrong committed.

There is the need to exercise great caution in dealing with cases of defilement, to ensure that no one suffers injustice and pays for crimes not committed.

Another example of conflict in ages during a defilement trial reported by the Ghana News Agency from Aflao, in the Volta Region, where a so-called victim of defilement challenged her mother's claim that she was a minor.

She claimed she was 18 and not 16 and accused her mother of giving wrong information to the police. The seven-month old pregnant girl further told the court that she was deeply in love with the accused and prayed the court to acquit him to enable him care for her.

The prosecution in its presentation stated explicitly that the mother had known about the relationship for some time. The prosecutor said the mother was unhappy about the fact that her daughter was still seeing the accused and had even left the house to stay with him.

The man was nevertheless sentenced to seven years in prison. The girl was in court with her newly born baby and wept bitterly. In another case a wife accused her husband of defiling their two and a half year-old daughter. In this case the woman's narration was so pathetic that it brought tears to the eyes of listeners.

One wondered how a father could do such an atrocious thing to his own daughter. The woman narrated how the daughter told her about it in the usual child-like manner that " mama, daddy put his hand here" pointing to her genital organ.

She also had a medical report, which indicated that the child's hymen was broken. Her story did not end there. She recounted the ordeal her husband subjected their house help to when he defiled her on several occasions.

One would say it took a lot of courage to report such a matter to the police. Her husband was arrested and detained at a police station pending trial.

In his statement, he expressed shock at his arrest and the allegations brought against him by his wife. He said his wife framed him up because he had earlier on threatened to divorce her on grounds of infidelity.

The case went to court and it came out that the medical report was without an official stamp, and the house help, who has left the service of the couple some years ago, was brought from her village to testify.

The woman desperate to get the man jailed was even seen pulling the house help's dress in court. Some people were of the opinion that the case had been quashed because that man had high ranking friends, but simple logic and proceedings at the court showed that the man was innocent.

In another incidence, a schoolgirl also accused her proprietor of defiling her. After some months in court, judgement was given in favour of the man because the girl later confessed that she lied.

This man wept openly in court after he had been vindicated but then, the harm had already been done. Since it is difficult to repair, damage prevention they say pays. Commenting on these developments, one prosecutor added another dimension. He said the issue at stake does not only involve mothers, who want to implicate the lovers of their girls.

"Some mothers reduce the ages of their boys, who have been implicated in rape and defilement cases, so that they can be tried as juveniles and taken to juvenile's court for lighter punishment." It is against this background that the introduction of weighing cards and birth certificates to ascertain the exact ages of victims in such cases would be most appreciated.

In cases where victims cannot provide these documents, they should be taken to the hospital to ascertain their correct ages.

The Prosecutor said, "it is unfortunate that it has taken quite a long time for such injustice and misleading information from parents to come to our notice and it is equally unfortunate too for parents to take advantage of such situations."

He warned that "any complainant, who is found guilty of such behaviour would be charged for perjury and dealt with according to the law. "It is time the public is educated on the law of perjury and its consequences." Is it not possible that many innocent men are in prison for crimes they did not commit thanks to prosecutors,

who did not do their homework well? The answer is blowing in the wind.