Suspected witch Girl treated like an animal

Cape Coast, Mar. 17, GNA - Ms Lucy Ofori-Agyeman, officer in-charge of the Department of Social Welfare in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) district on Tuesday, told the Ghana News Agency at Cape Coast, that the 14-year-old girl, who was allegedly locked up in a room for five years, at Kissi-Emem, a settlement at Kissi near Komenda, on suspicion of being a witch, was "treated like an animal".

In a telephone interview, Ms Ofori-Agyeman, who said Mrs Edith DeCos, founder and managing director of 'Baobab Children's Foundation', an NGO operating in the area, discovered the girl's plight. She said her office had "evidence to show" that the girl was kept "imprisoned and isolated".

According to her, relatives of the victim who is also paralysed, was only removed her from her confined place, when they had information that her plight had been made known.

It would be recalled that last Saturday, a team of policemen led by the Regional officer of the Women and Juvenile Unit (WAJU) of the Police Service, Ms Beatrice Amoako went to the area when she heard about the girl's plight.

Her paternal grand-mother, Madam Adjoa Tawiah, 75, however debunked the reports and said the girl who was then aged nine, had been indoors because her mother was too poor to seek further treatment, and had not been locked and was well cared for.

Ms Ofori-Agyeman, however, said her outfit was solely interested in ensuring medical treatment for the victim who is currently on admission at the Central Regional Hospital.

When the GNA visited the hospital, Ms Mary Nketsia, nursing sister in charge of the Paediatric Ward, said the victim was brought there last Saturday suffering from poliomyelitis, malaria, marasmus (kwashiorkor) and mental retardation.

According to her, she is being treated of the malaria and marasmus at the hospital, and that she would be discharged after the two ailments had been cured.

The GNA also got into contact with the victim's mother, Madam Aba Akyere at the hospital, and in an interview, she denied reports that she had locked up her daughter because she was a witch. She also denied reports that she had threatened to abandon her at the hospital.

According to her, she and the victim together with her siblings, all sleep in the same room, and that she had not been locked up or isolated.

At the WAJU office, Ms Amoako, told the GNA that Madam Akyere's statement had been taken and that the unit was conducting further investigations into the case.

Meanwhile, Mrs DeCos, Managing Director of the NGO, who tipped off the authorities has borne the medical bills of her two other siblings who are said to be suffering from epilepsy and yaws. Mrs DeCos, who also spoke to the GNA on the phone, said she had found a wheel chair for the victim to use when she is discharged from the hospital and was prepared to put the victim and one other sibling through school.

She said members of the 'Baobab Youth Club' an offshoot of the NGO, were also contributing money towards the victim's upkeep.

In a further development the Women and Juvenile Unit (WAJU) is conducting investigations into the case and was liaising with the Department of Social Welfare in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo- Abrem (KEEA) district to take care of the victim, who is also said to be paralysed, pending investigations.

The officer in-charge of the unit, Police Superintendent Beatrice Amoako disclosed this when she led a team of policemen to Kissi-Emem, a settlement at Kissi near Komenda, where the victim is resident, following a tip-off.

When the team, accompanied by a reporter from the Ghana News Agency got to the settlement, it found that contrary to reports that the victim was looking very unkempt, and had been isolated, she was lying asleep on a mat in what appeared to be the family's room, looking very clean.

The team, which suspected that the victim's relations must also have been tipped off about its intended action, did however, not meet her mother, one Madam Aba Akyere, a farmer, who is said to have gone to the farm, but her paternal grandmother, Madam Adjoa Tawiah, 75, debunked claims that her grand-daughter had been locked up because she was a witch.

According to her, five years ago, her granddaughter, who was then aged nine, was struck by a strange ailment one night and began screaming at the top of her voice, shortly after her father's death, and was rushed to the Ankaful psychiatric hospital the next day, where she was given some medication and sent back home.

Madam Tawiah said, shortly after, the victim became paralysed and her mother, who has eight other children, sent her back to the hospital about four times and later sought herbal treatment for her when there was no improvement in her condition.

She said her daughter in-law has however, given-up efforts to seek further treatment for the victim due to poverty, but stressed that she was well cared for and has not been locked up and neglected as being speculated.

The victim's elder sister, Mary Ankomah, aged 19, corroborated her grandmother's story and claimed that her sister was properly cared for by their mother.

Superintendent Asamoah later told the GNA that the girl's mother would face prosecution if it became evident that the girl has been abused.