Parents of sexually abused children have been advised to as a first step, take the abused children to a hospital for immediate attention.

This is to enable the victims to be stabilised physically and mentally before reporting the case to the police.

This will also enable the victim to be administered with medication which would prevent them from getting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections and diseases.

A Child Protection Specialist of the Child Health Department of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Harriet Odoley Klufio, who gave the advice, explained that if the case was reported within 72 hours of the defilement or sexual assault, and the hospital was able to establish that indeed there was penal penetration, anti-retroviral drugs would be given which would prevent HIV infection from occurring.

“But if the child stays for more than 72 hours of the sexual act before reporting to the hospital, the victim may miss the opportunity of preventing HIV infection as a result of the sexual assault.

It is, therefore, important to report any incident of sexual abuse to the hospital immediately it occurs.

You should not dilly-dally trying to get money from the perpetrators to settle the case at home,” she advised.

She said better still, while hospital care was taking place, a report to the police could be done concurrently by other family members or the victim.

Criminal act

Mrs Klufio, who was speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic said while it was acknowledged that the act was criminal and needed to be reported to the police, taking the child-victim first to the police station before the hospital could scare them, adding that, the mere hearing of the name “police” even causes some children to shiver.

“So, we prefer that the victims are brought to the hospital first for us to stabilise them psychologically and physically so that they will be able to narrate the incident in a calm state of mind.”

“The police station does not offer a conducive atmosphere for the child-victim to be able to give a vivid description of what transpired because they are most often traumatised and scared,” she explained.

Mrs Klufio, who is also the first Ghanaian Forensic Nurse and the officer in charge of the Child Protection Unit of the hospital, said it was for that reason that the unit had been made child-friendly, so that when abused children were brought there, they could calm down and the health professionals would use their expertise to get all the necessary information from them.

She said where after reporting the case to the police and it became necessary for the police to see and interview the child victim, the police could always do so by visiting the victim at the clinic, home or go to the crime scene with them after the child-victim has been discharged.

Bad act

Describing child sexual abuse as a very bad act that leaves its victims traumatised psychologically, physically and sexually, she said, in some of the serious cases, it leaves the victims with an opening between the vagina and the rectum for which reason the victims undergo at least three surgical operations to correct the damage caused.

She advised parents to educate their children to run away from advances from sexual perpetrators and also not to believe the perpetrators when they threaten to kill them or their mothers if they report the acts to their parents or an adult.

The forensic nurse said every year, the Child Protection Unit of the hospital records an average of between 38 to 40 cases of child abuse and 80 per cent of these abuse in children are sexual abuse.

The remaining 20 per cent of abuse cases make up physical abuse and neglect.

Rising cases of abandonment in 
newborn babies

She disclosed that abandonment of newborn babies was rising in the hospital due to the current economic hardships, adding that formerly, that was not the case due to the free maternal health delivery policy that was in place.

She said the latest case of abandonment involving three babies were only a few months ago.

She added that the acts were committed by both grown up women and adolescents, however, adolescents were in the majority.

“They do it all the time.

It is not everybody that will have an abortion.

They may not even have money for safe abortion so they carry the pregnancy to term, come and deliver, abandon the baby and go back home to say they lost the child.”

They don’t have the money and the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) does not cover everything after delivery.

We may ask them to buy certain things and they may also have to buy diapers and other belongings for the baby and because they don’t have money, they abandon them,” she said.

SOURCE: GraphicOnline