Ghana will soon launch a sex offenders’ register to maintain names of persons convicted of sexually related offences as pertains in other jurisdictions.
This is according to the Director of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service, Chief Superintendent, Owusuaa Kyeremeh.
This register will not only help fight pervasive sexual misconduct in society but will also be a deterrent to multiple sex offenders.
“In Ghana, we generally document all convicts. There is a procedure that we go through. We do not have one specifically for rape convicts but what we intend doing is on the drawing board. We want to establish a register for rape convicts, people who have been convicted of rape so that it will be something that we can easily refer to.
“For now, we do not have sex offenders register on its own but then all the offences of convicts within Ghana are documented at the CID headquarters but going forward, the Police Service is of the view that it is time we get sex offenders to register so we can easily cross-check and find out so if someone is going to look for a job we can always refer to that. It is on the drawing board and hopefully, in the nearest future we will have it in Ghana,” Superintendent Kyeremeh said.
In 2019, conversations about sexual harassment were reignited in Ghana after two lecturers of the University of Ghana – Dr. Ransford Gyampo and Dr. Paul Butakor were accused of sexual harassment.
The two were implicated in a BBC documentary with regards to their alleged sexual harassment of female students.
The two were subsequently hauled before the University’s Anti Sexual Harassment Committee to assist with internal investigations.
They were interdicted in October 2019, right after the BBC report and subsequently suspended for a few months without pay.
