Call it the end times as predicted in the Bible and you may not be mistaken; as findings from several weeks of painstaking investigations by The Al-Hajj show how many divorced men rather than living lives that portray them as a responsible and respectable fathers, have chosen the shameful and abominable path of dishonor by demanding sex with their biological daughters.
As if morality in modern day Ghana has gone on sabbatical leave, the act of men having their libido going haywire and pushing them to taste the forbidden fruit of their own daughters that landed Biblical Adam in trouble have assumed such an alarming proportion, to the extent that, more and more victims now feel uncomfortable living under the same roof with their single-parent fathers.
Years back, this distasteful act was heard more amongst the rich and the high in the society, as they sleep with their daughters for money rituals purposes and or to get more powers, but they always get away with it as they are usually very influential in society, so none of such cases end up in prosecution.
But lately, incest has suddenly become a common place among the middle and lower class in the society, especially in broken homes.
Our investigations proved that most fathers take advantage of the absence of their divorced wives to forcefully attempt and in some cases succeed in having an affair with the daughters, a development that has led many of the victims to flee their homes.
A case in point was a young lady (name withheld) who traced her father to Nungua in an attempt to help her to further her education, but had her father constantly forcing to have sex with her.
Narrating her ordeal to The Al-Hajj, the victim explained that, the parents have divorced for over six years and she has since been living with the mother at a village near Koforidua in the Eastern region, adding “when I completed Senior High School, my mother took me to my father to also see to my needs and pay for my further education.”
It looked like a tale from a movie when the traumatized young lady said the father, instead of playing the role as required of a responsible father, on numerous occasions attempted to have sex with her under the pretext of taking good care of her, adding “in one of his attempts, he nearly succeeded; he pounced on me one night, threatening me if I don’t allow him to have sex with me… he forced his hand over my mouth but I managed to push him aside and run away.”
Another victim who suffered the same ordeal said, she travelled from the Central region to Accra to her father after the mother had single- handedly saw her through secondary school for him to help her continue my education or learn a trade, “instead of my father helping me, he gave me an option to either sleep with him to get what I want or I leave him alone.”
In all of the cases this paper came across during the investigation, all of the victims have left their various houses and are either idling on the streets, or living with close friends or boyfriends.
Ominously, this reporter leant that these callous fathers, out of anger throw out their daughters out of the house for refusing to yield to their demands, a development that has led to many of the young women roaming the street in search of where to lay their heads.
In most cases, the poor victims of incest are too frightened to come out and talk about their ordeals especially where they live under the same roof with their fathers with no motherly figure around.
Some of them also feel too ashamed to reveal their torments to their mothers or any close relations let alone to the law enforcement agencies.