Gay concerns, bloody accident played up by Ghanaian media

Accra, Ghana (PANA) - The openness of gays, their indecent activities and health risks to the society occupied the front pages of Ghanaian newspapers this week.

The newspapers also gave a lot of space to a bloody accident in which 27 people perished.

The state-owned Graphic had the headline “8,000 gays in two regions”, with the story saying 8,000 homosexuals have been registered by non-governmental organisations(NGOs) in the Western and some parts of the Central regions, with majority of them infected with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV/AIDS.

Sadly, they include young people in junior and senior high schools, the polytechnics and workers.

“The rise in STDs, including HIV, in the two regions, according to the NGOs, was due to the fact that almost all those registered were bi-sexual, with some having wives and girlfriends. This has resulted in the rapid spread of STDs, including HIV/AIDS.”

The Western Regional HIV and AIDS Focal Person, Dr Ronald Sowah, charged health workers in the region not to discriminate against homosexuals when they visit the various health facilities with health problems.

"Dispense health services to them without prejudice because it is their fundamental human right to be taken care of when they are sick," Sowah said.

“Tutor sodomises five students,” was a story by the state-owned Ghanaian Times. It said a Mathematics tutor of Adisadel College in Cape Coast, Richard Atta Panyin, has been dismissed by the school authorities.

Panyin was alleged to have had canal knowledge of five boys of the school in one year.

“Sodomy teacher arrested,” was the headline of the Graphic, which said the Mathematics teacher had been arrested by the police.

Earlier, the Graphic reported that a lesbian lecturer of Takoradi Polytechnic, who allegedly lured some female students into lesbianism was fired by the institution.

Meanwhile, the mother of a 15-year-old boy in Takoradi in the Western Region wept as she narrated the ordeal her son now goes through as a result of being sodomized by an adult who is now at large.

The woman said her son started discharging liquid through his anus uncontrollably and at the hospital, the boy confessed to anal sex with a man.

A medical doctor, Dr. Ernest Yorke, has said homosexuality is unnatural and that there is a need to educate people about the dangers associated with it.

The Ghanaian Times quoted a Catholic Bishop as expressing concern about the upsurge of lesbianism and homosexuality in the country.

“Stop gays, priest charges authorities,” was the headline of the newspaper, with the story saying the Catholic Bishop of Sunyani, the Most Rev. Matthew Gyamfi, these two practices posed a danger to the sustainability of the family system, the foundation of the church and Christianity, and should not be allowed to flourish.

Gyamfi likened the claim of homosexuals to that of kleptomaniacs and asked if they should be allowed to be stealing since the behaviour was inborn.

The bishop said although there might be some truth in those involved in the practice’s claim that their desire for same sex was innate, they should not push for its legislation.

In another development, the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) said on Wednesday that it envisaged the risk of the increase of activities of gays and had initiated a series of focused surveillance activities for HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

The surveillance is directed among most at risk populations.

In a statement issued in Accra by Dr. Angela El-Adas, Director-General of GAC in reaction to reports of gay activities, it said the MSM (Men having Sex with Men) situation in Ghana was an issue the country could not run away from.

"The work of the reported NGO that registered up to 8,000 MSM, if true, may just be a microcosm of the real situation on the ground. Activities of MSM may predispose some of them and their other heterosexual partners to HIV. It is important therefore to have the requisite data for planning HIV prevention and treatment interventions," it said.

The Graphic's headline on the accident read, “27 die in accident after head-on collision.”

It said 27 people died, while nine others sustained serous injuries when a 33-seater Benz bus on which they were travelling was involved in head-on collision with a recovery truck.

The headline of the Times read “27 perish!”