General News of Thursday, 5 April 2018
Source: Myjoyonline.com
2018-04-05
Martin Kpebu, Private legal practitioner
Private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu has advised parents of girls allegedly sexually abused by their teachers at Ejisuman Senior High School to lodge formal complaints with the police.
This, he said, is the only way the police can effect the arrest of the eight teachers of the Ashanti-region school.
The eight have been indicted by an eight-member committee set up by the Ghana Education Service to investigate claims of widespread sexual harassment and abuse of students at the school.
The committee heard testimonies of 10 girls who gave detailed accounts of how the named teachers sought to sexually exploit them.
The teachers involved denied parts of the testimonies. They were nonetheless, indicted by the committee for inappropriate conduct and referred to the GES for disciplinary action.
All eight teachers have been interdicted.
A deputy Education Minister, Dr Yaw Adutwum, Wednesday told Joy FM’s Super Morning Show the police must arrest the teachers and bring criminal charges against them.
He said the suspensions were not sufficient since their actions, if proven, border on criminality.
But Mr. Kpebu said the police on their own cannot arrest the accused teachers now because there have been some intervening actions by relevant authorities – GES, the school – leading to their suspension.
He said the parents of the victims or human rights activists may complain to the police.
The police can, acting on such complaints, arrest the suspected offenders for possible prosecution.