Sack Abetifi Presby SHS Headmistress - Human Rights Centre demands

A rights-based organisation, the Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC), has called for the dismissal of Madam Charlotte Asante, Headmistress of Abetifi Presbyterian Senior High School in the Kwahu East District of the Eastern Region, from the Ghana Education Service (GES).

The call is based on the alleged torture and inhuman treatment meted out to 13 male students of the School recently, on the orders of the Madam Asante.

A statement signed by Robert Akoto Amoafo, Executive Director of HRAC, recalled that the students were paraded in their boxer shorts before the Assembly for reportedly staying in their dormitories while their colleagues were attending the school's morning devotion.

Madam Asante was said to have instructed the House Master to take photographs of the students in their boxer shorts and further ordered three teachers to give the almost-naked male students ten lashes each before their colleagues, including females, of over 1,500 students.

“The Human Rights Advocacy Centre strongly condemns this act and calls for the dismissal of Madam Charlotte Asante. Her action on the students is degrading and inhumane. She has defamed and brought the human dignity of these boys into disrepute.

“Madam Charlotte in her attempt to meet out disciplinary measure to these students has rather caused potential psychological trauma to these boys which may take several years to erase.

“We therefore call on the Ghana Education Service to dismiss Madam Charlotte Asante from the Ghana Education Service to serve as a deterrent to other personnel in the service,” said the statement.

HRAC further demanded that legal action be brought against Madam Asante for contravening section 13 (1) and (2) of the Children's Act 1998 (Act 560).

The section states that on Protection from torture and degrading treatment, “(1) No person shall subject a child to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment including any cultural practice which dehumanises or is injurious to the physical and mental well-being of a child.

“(2) No correction of a child is justifiable which is unreasonable in kind or in degree according to the age, physical and mental condition of the child and no correction is justifiable if the child by reason of tender age or otherwise is incapable of understanding the purpose of the correction.”

The statement noted with concern that several similar cases of human rights abuse against students by teachers and head teachers have been recorded within the GES from the beginning of this year.

Famous among them, it said, being the teacher in the Western Region who stepped on two boys for not doing their homework and the female student who was instructed by a teacher to strip naked in public an incident led to the riot in the Tuna Senior High Technical School in the Northern Region.

It noted that the Ministry of Education and the GES were to ensure that children in school were safe and have a sound environment for teaching and learning.

It added, “Inconsiderate persons like Madam Charlotte Asante who have attained her current level in the education service as a headmistress should know better and rather guide teachers to carry out appropriate, productive, non-violent and humane disciplinary measures to students.”

The HRAC said it was worried about “possible unheard and unreported abuses which may be going on within our schools.” And thus called on the GES to further conduct investigations and put in measures to ensure that “the school is not a den of child abuse.”