The fate of an orphaned teenage mother and her child hang in a balance after her aunt’s husband who defiled and impregnated her at knife point abandoned her.
Community leaders at Tetrem in the Ashanti Region covered up the crime up by “settling it at home” in breach of the law, while the culprit, identified as Koo Fori, walks a free man.
The 14-year-old girl, Serwaa [pseudo name] lived a normal life with her parents until five years ago when the icy hands of death snatched them away.
She had to live with her aunt who accepted to take care of her.
Any comfort Serwaa may have anticipated from her aunt remained a wish, as the woman subjected her to physical and verbal abuse.
She would always accuse the innocent girl of being a bad cook.
Serwaa told Nhyira FM’s Naa Amerley that, her anguish in her aunt’s house worsened when the woman travelled to Accra.
She said her husband took advantage of her aunt’s absence to defile and turned the teenager into a sex slave.
The traumatic experience compelled poor Serwaa to seek refuge with her grandmother.
Even there, her auntie’s husband followed and sexually abused her, on one occasion, at knife point on the bare floor at the market square.
Threats from Koo Fori forced the girl to keep her ordeal to herself until she was found to be pregnant, apparently from the violent sexual act.
After narrating the incident, community leaders covered up for the confessed culprit by settling the matter “at home” with the Krontinhene in attendance.
Though the man had accepted to take care of the baby upon delivery, he turned deaf ears to the issue as helpless Serwaa and her grandma struggle to cater for the child.
Serwaa remains out of school while the man responsible for her woes walks free.