Madam Eva Ankrah, Executive Director of Human Rights and Development Service (HURDS) has stressed the need for strict timelines in adjudicating gender and sexual abuse cases at the court.
She said, in some jurisdiction, sexual abuse cases involving children were handled within six weeks or up to a year.
The HURDS Director was worried that in Ghana, children assaulted or abused sexually had to endure not only the trauma, pain, and stigma, but delayed justice.
She noted that real justice to perpetrators would not only deter others but also serve as a relief to victims and their families.
Madam Ankrah at a stakeholder meeting to report back on the KASA! Project, funded by the African Women Development Fund for the past seven months, said the project engaged students from various Senior High Schools and communities to educate on sexual abuse, channels of reporting and access to the Domestic Violence fund by the Ministry Children, Gender, and Social Protection.
She said, students of most of the schools visited had had an encounter with sexual abuse but were afraid to report and requested a specialised school reporting mechanism to encourage reportage on the issue.
The KASA! Project, she announced that 30 volunteers, religious and faith-based organisations and other opinions leaders in communities have been trained to help in reporting these offences to the judiciary for the appropriate punishment.
She prayed that stakeholders would carry on with the work of the project even though it had officially ended to ensure that both girls and boys were duly protected from sexual abuse.
