Ghana: School girls in Takoradi becoming beach prostitutes

The seaside along the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolis has become a breeding ground for babies instead of fingerlings.Young, energetic and beautiful girls of school-going age have shunned their dreams of getting themselves educated and are instead prostituting themselves and becoming pregnant in their teens.

This worrying social canker has persisted over the years and is begging the attention of parents and authorities.Seashores and ghettos where these young girls ply the age-old trade include Sekondi, Ekuase, New Takoradi and Nkontompo, among other places.

Ms. Florence Parry, member of the Social Services Committee of the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly indicated that, “Surprisingly, these young ones ply such a trade for between GHc2 and GHc5 per customer."

The GHc2 and GHc5 paid as a fee for a round of unprotected sex, exposes these children to lots of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and HIV/Aids.

Such diseases place a huge yoke on the future of these children and the human resource base of the Region and the country as a whole.

Mr. Emmanuel Edwin Adoko, an Assembly man at New Takoradi Lower Electoral area, told the Ghana News Agency how severely the practice was destroying the future of girls in the community.

He intimated that Sunday nights were the worst in that community and as such girls were missing from school the next day.

The Assemblyman talked about some group of buildings where rooms were designated for such amorous and social vices.

Madam Hannah Mills, a resident at Sekondi, also confirmed and described as disturbing, the situation where children born out of these “games and trade” were left to the mercies of the weather and sometimes abandoned in rooms, particularly in the evening in order for the mothers to continue with their trade.

The question that readily comes to mind is: “Are parents or society shirking the tool of control and discipline and leaving the future of the country to chance?”

Aren’t there any social intervention packages by the various ministries concerned to capture these children and give them better lives?

Mr. Samuel Adjaquah, a governance expert, called for a moral revolution in the country. He said the society was gradually losing out on its productive workforce and called for urgent measures to check the situation.

Ghanaian society is indeed in trouble should these vices go on at the blind side of authorities; and even parents who are key actors in the lives of these future generations look on helplessly.

Ms Josephine Yankson Amo of the Department of Women who corroborated the happenings, mentioned Sekondi Post Office and Zenith areas as sleeping places for “outside girls” who come to town to engage in the trade.

She indicated that her outfit had received various complaints from the public and entreated parents to be more responsible adding, “Some parents even push their children into the trade”.

Ms. Amo has, therefore, called on the media and the police to support in educating as well as clamping down on such nefarious activities.

Source: GNA