Hidden in Plain Sight: Child Sexual Violence and Community Silence in Ghana

Child sexual violence is a hidden, though common, social pathology in Ghana. The article under discussion questions the dynamics of communal silence, popular indignation, and institutional responsibility by examining one of them of a four-year-old girl in Suhum, Eastern Region, who is reported to have been sexually abused several times by a fourteen-year-old male neighbour in a compound house. Although the child experiences pain immediately after the abuse, it is alleged to have been an intermittent experience over a long period before the issue of caregivers took it seriously, thus revealing the much-needed gap in early identification and community safety of the abused children. The fundamental issue considered in this research is that child sexual abuse repeatedly manifests itself within close residential spaces and at the same time is not detected or acted upon by the families and communities. This study adopts a qualitative case-study approach along with the media and the discourse analysis of the population. The reported incident by GHOne TV and Starr FM is the centre of attention, whereas the reactions of the society that appeared on social media are analysed to clarify the perceptions of the society, moral reactions, and the need of justice. Discussing these commentaries, a number of overriding themes are identified, such as the acute emotional pain of the readers, the wide-spread criticism of the perpetrators, the demand to provide even stronger legal measures, to put the blame on the parents or the guardians, and the disappointment with the perceived inefficiency of the justice system.
The results show that the general discussion comprises the empathy of victims, moral indignation about perpetrators, and the general feeling of anxiety in society over the growing rate of child defilement in Ghana. At the same time, the remarks highlight structural issues on a higher level, including how child vulnerability has become normalized in the domestic context, how people tend to shift responsibility onto the caregivers, and how people would want the legal system to be more effective in deterring culprits. The case also explains the tensions of community-based informal resolution systems and the demands of formal law-enforcement systems as it was demonstrated in Ghana Police Service where formal prosecution was demanded. The paper argues that child sexual violence in Ghana is not a mere criminal activity, but a wider social phenomenon that is perpetuated by the silence of communities and the slow responsiveness of communities to children raised complaints and a weak protective system in each household and neighbourhood. The contextualisation of the Suhum case into the broader sociological debates on vulnerability, power relations, and social responsibility contributes to the study that suggests the need to have more efficient child protection systems, more active social awareness, and stricter enforcement of the law.

Child sexual abuse, public discourse, social media reactions

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