Parliament Orders Independent Abuse Reporting Channel for SHS Students

Senior high school students in Ghana could soon report sexual abuse directly to a protected central registry, without involving their head teachers, under a directive issued by parliamentary committees.

As first reported by Graphic Online, the committees have instructed the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to jointly design an independent, third-party reporting mechanism that bypasses school heads altogether.

The directive follows alleged sexual abuse at Obuasi Senior High Technical School (SHTS). It was contained in a joint media statement issued after the Education and Gender ministers briefed the committees on Tuesday.

In the statement, the committees said the current administrative routes for reporting sexual misconduct within the Ghana Education Service (GES) "are broken". They called for measures to stop complaints from being suppressed or stalled inside schools and the wider education administration.

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The committees also recommended that the Gender Ministry work with relevant institutions to set up a register of sexual offenders, intended to discourage sexual offences against children.

The Education Ministry was directed to carry out an independent safeguarding audit of all boarding and day second-cycle institutions. The audit is to examine student safety, risks linked to accommodation and whether staff are following the GES Code of Conduct. The ministry was further asked to work with relevant bodies to train teachers on that code.

Both ministries were asked to put in place a coordinated system for identifying and dealing with sexual abuse and other misconduct in schools.

On support for those affected, the committees called for survivors to receive counselling and medical care paid for by the state. These services are to be delivered by the Gender Ministry in partnership with the Ghana Health Service.

The committees also stressed that survivors' identities must be protected. They warned that students, parents or staff who stigmatise or intimidate survivors would face prosecution under the Children's Act.

They urged the Ministry of the Interior and the Inspector-General of Police to speed up criminal proceedings against Zakaria Abdulai, the interdicted headmaster of Obuasi SHTS. The judiciary was asked to treat the case as urgent, while religious leaders and political institutions were urged not to interfere with the criminal justice process.

The committees praised the two ministries for their early response, including the headmaster's interdiction and the deployment of psychological support teams to the school.

The two ministers are expected to brief Parliament regularly until criminal prosecutions are concluded and the proposed reforms are in place. The committees said they would maintain "active, unyielding oversight" of the process.

Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu told Parliament that a committee set up on October 14 to investigate the allegations had completed 85 per cent of its work. He said the evidence gathered so far pointed to a prima facie case and that prosecution was expected to begin shortly.