By Newman Anthony Levey In Bo
Residents of Niagorehun Village in Bagbo Chiefdom, Bo District, have requested for the establishment of a police post as part of efforts to tackle a rise in crime rate, including Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV).
The community people are particularly concerned about rise in cases of teenage pregnancy. They say cases of sexual abuse of minors are being swept under the carpet due to a culture of compromise, which they blame on the local chiefs.
The villagers say in the absence of a police post, they are forced to report incidents of SGBV to their local authorities who they claim seek to resolve the issues at family level.
Parents, particularly those with girl children, say they are concerned about the future of their children.
Niagorehun, a community with an estimated population of about 1000 people, is situated about 27 miles from the district headquarters town of Bo. The village is predominantly agrarian, with cassava as its main crop.
Elizabeth M. Bangura, a nurse at the Niagorehun Community Health Center, told Politico that the center have in recent times recorded a large number of underaged girls visiting the facility for registration for anti-natal care. She said they were reluctant to entertain them, given the “alarming rate” of teenage pregnancy in the community.
Nurse Bangura said most of the cases are within the age bracket of 9 and 13 years. She noted that they initially refused to register such cases at the facility for fear of the possible complications that they might face during or before delivering the baby.
The nurse, who is one of four health workers running the center, cited a notable case involving a 13-year-old girl, whose family she said resisted a referral order to the Bo Government Hospital, noting that they later learnt that she had been impregnated in Bo and was taken to the village as a way of protecting the family’s name.
According to Nurse Bangura, the most recent case involved a 16-year-old girl. The girl, who has just concluded the National Primary School Examination, was on Friday the 25th of August this year allegedly sexually abused in the same village by a business man. The girl, talking to reporters with the permission of her parents, told Politico that she was sexually penetrated by a man she named as Sulaiman, whose family name nobody knows in the village. She said she was afraid to report the matter to her parents and instead confided in a neighbor who later told her parents.
It later emerged that she was impregnated by a man whom the family had hosted for a few days while on a business trip to the village.
Dauda Patrick Ngombu, father of the 16-year-old girl, said he only knew about the incident the next day through her wife, describing the situation as “unfortunate” and confirming that Suliaman did stay in his house as a visitor.
“I called the number 166 to report that my child had been sexually penetrated and they asked me questions which I answered. I came and inform our village authorities," Mr Ngombu narrated.
Ngombu said Suliaman had since disappeared from the village. The visibly distraught father said he had no way to report the matter to the police because there was no police post in the community.
Another concerned parent, Fatmata Kamara, is dealing with a situation with her 17 year-old daughter who was impregnated by one Momoh Musa, a secondary school pupil in the village. Mrs Kamara said as a family they decided to abort the pregnancy, which resulted in many complications for the girl.
“My daughter was pregnant for over two months, but we later aborted the pregnancy and she was bleeding perfidiously and we took her to the Bo Government Hospital, where she is responding to treatment,” she explained.
The villagers lamented that the local authorities always compromise rape cases reported to them for fear of breaking family ties and in the name of maintaining good community relationships.
However, a section Chief in Niagorehun Village, Lahai Sowa, denied the allegation of compromise by local chiefs. He said they have always referred complainants to report the matter to the police in Bo.
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