A report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Girls Excellent Movement (GEM) on sexual harassment in Senior High Schools (SHS) says 51.9% of female students were sexually assaulted between 2019 and 2021.
The report, titled: “Sheltered yet Exposed”, said 54.3% of those girls were between the ages of 17 and 22 while 45.7% were in the 11 and 16 age brackets.
It said the act was usually perpetuated by friends, family friends, school mates, teachers and strangers.
Friends topped the chart with 24%, family friends-12%, school mates-12%, teachers-10%, and strangers, nine per cent.
The Founder and Executive Director, GEM, Juliana Ama Kplorfia disclosed this at a stakeholder engagement, organized by the Center for Social Justice (CSJ) with support from the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Ghana to discuss how to prevent sexual harassment in SHS.
Ms Kplorfia said other groups, which committed sexual assault on female students in SHS included uncles, cousins, neighbors, fathers and fathers in-law.
The report said aside sexual assaults, the females also suffered other forms of gender-based violence such as physical assault, bullying, verbal assault and harassment.
According to Ms. Kplorfia, the females fell victim to the various forms of assault mainly due to academic, financial and mental challenges.
Speaking on the impact of such abuses, she noted that most of the victims ended up with depression, trauma, bi-polar disorder, anxiety and panic attacks, which sometimes compelled them to drop out of school.
She, therefore, called on the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to resource their counselling units in the schools to work effectively.
Ms. Kplorfia also called on parents and guardians to pay particular attention to female wards in schools, by ensuring that girls had role models, who impacted their lives positively because some fell prey to sexual assaults due to bad role models.
She also urged the government to make medical report for rape and sexual harassment free, and called for the abolishment of taxes on sanitary pads and also for pads to be supplied to schools free of charge.
