Obinim flogging was ‘torture’ – Attafuah

The open flogging of two teen lovers by Bishop Daniel Obinim in open church recently amounts to “approximate torture”, human rights lawyer Prof Ken Attafuah has said.

He told Chief Jerry Forson on Accra100.5FM’s breakfast show, Ghana Yensom, on Friday, 19 August, that the founder of the International God’s Way Church “publicly humiliated” the 14-year-old pregnant girl and her 16-year-old boyfriend, both of whom the Obinims have adopted.

According to Prof Attafuah, Bishop Obinim’s flogging of the teens for fornicating, breaches Article 15(1) of the 1992 constitution which protects the inviolable dignity and human rights of citizens.

He said Ghana’s domestic laws also criminalise such acts against children. In the view of the criminologist, the Obinims are not fit to offer proper parentage to the two adopted teenagers because they are always not at home due to the nature of their Ministry.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection has reported Bishop Obinim to the Accra regional office of the Domestic Violence and Victims’ Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service over the matter.

“We have been informed that the police have commenced investigations into the matter and a complaint has also been filed against him [Obinim] at the Tema Regional Police. We will keep you posted on further developments,” sector minister Nana Oye Lithur said in a Facebook post.

Bishop Obinim has come under heavy criticism on social media for flogging the teenagers with a belt.

On the videotape that captured the flogging, Bishop Obinim kept chastising and asking the young lovers if they were “stupid”.

At a point, his wife, Florence, was seen intervening and pleading for mercy on behalf of the two, but the controversial bishop was intent on disciplining the two lovers.