[ 2014-08-31 ]

Death: the tragic story of a girl given to a guy for GHC5
A 16-year-old girl has lost her life at the Ridge
Hospital in Accra because a 72-year-old
self-styled prophetess/herbalist called Elizabeth
Charles allegedly gave her to a guy for GHC5 and
the guy impregnated her while she was only 15
years old.

The girl was reported to have been in a deep coma
for days because she suffered from a double dose
of convulsion due to epilepsy and another
complication called eclampsia, which is high blood
pressure during pregnancy.

Doctors say she was taken to the hospital
collapsed and pregnant for 36 weeks and they
managed to deliver her of the baby while she was
in coma, and she was put on life support for about
a week before she finally passed on.

Before she was taken to the Ridge Hospital, the
girl was sent to the prayer camp of self-styled
prophetess/herbalist at Winneba a year ago to heal
her of epilepsy. The name of the camp is Apostle
Church of Ghana Ebenezer Garden Number One.

She has since been at the prayer camp, and it was
there that the prophetess allegedly took GHC5 from
a man called Kwame, who showed interest in the
girl and gave her out without the consent of the
girl's parents.

The mother of the girl, Joana Genney told Adom
News she only got to know, when her daughter was
about two months pregnant, that the prophetess she
trusted with her sick daughter with, gave her to a
man for GHC5.

“When I asked her how come my daughter was
pregnant, she told me she took GHC5 from the man
as a token of his commitment to being the girl's
spouse,” Joana said.

But the Prophetess initially denied taking money
and giving the girl away, saying that the girl
went wayward with the man on her own and got
pregnant.

However, she later admitted to receiving GHC20
from the man for the girl's upkeep.

She also alleged that the girl's parents abandoned
her at the prayer camp and that made her start
getting help from Kwame, the guy who eventually
impregnated her.

The Prophetess claimed the girl's epilepsy was
caused by spiritual forces but she healed her
completely before the mother went for her.

“Currently I have about 30 more patients
resident at my camp and I am working on them
also,” she said.


Ridge Doctors
But Consultant Obstetrician/Gynecologist at the
Ridge Hospital, Dr. Emmanuel Srofenyo told Adom
News the girl was brought to the hospital
collapsed and they discovered she was still
epileptic and had eclampsia also.

This is contrary to the prophetesses claim that
she cured the girl completely before she left the
camp.

“Both diseases cause convulsion and that was
double dose of convulsion which was too much for
this little girl,” the doctor said.

Dr. Srofenyo said the man who impregnated the girl
and the prophetess never visited the girl for once
while she was on admission, so the doctors and
nurses had to combine their personal resources to
keep the girl alive, until she gave up the ghost.

He believes the law must be brought to bear in the
practice where self-styled prophets, prophetesses,
mallams, fetish priests and herbalists camp sick
people for protracted periods till their
sicknesses get worse before rushing them to
orthodox hospitals.

“I have witnessed cases where so-called prayer
camps harbored pregnant women until they got worse
before being rushed to the hospital only for them
to die at the hospital. This is one of the things
hampering our efforts to achieve the million
development goal on maternal mortality,” he
said.


The law
Meanwhile, the Winneba police picked up the
prophetess Elizabeth Charles and parents of Kwame,
the guy who impregnated the deceased.

Kwame is still at large but Inspector Victor
Darkey of the Winneba Police said his parents have
been asked to produce him or face the law.

He said the police has information that Kwame is
working with the family of the deceased towards
her funeral and burial, but he is expecting the
girl's family to hand Kwame over to the police or
he would arrest and detain one of them until they
produce Kwame.

In Ghana, sex with girl or boy under the age of
16, with or without his or her consent, is
defilement. And it attracts between seven to 25
years imprisonment term according to Section 101,
Sub-section 2 of the Criminal Code Act 29, 1960.

Lawyer Dr. Maurice Ampaw said the boy should be
held for defilement and the prophetess held for
aiding and abetment of crime if it is proven the
girl was a minor when she got pregnant.

He thinks the IGP and the Gender and Social
Protection Minister need to intervene and give the
matter the seriousness it deserves instead of
leaving it to Winneba police to handle.

Source - Adom News

... go Back