What It Would Have Taken to Protect Her
In my previous op-ed, I shared the story of a pupil at a basic school in Ghana's Northern Region. She found the courage to tell an adult she trusted that a teacher had been abusing her.
We believed her. We went to the police. We handed over her school uniform as evidence.
That was years ago. She is still waiting for justice.
It is easy to read a story like hers and agree that the system is broken. It is much harder to say exactly where it broke, and who should fix it.
So this time, I want to replay her case as it should have gone. Not as a wish, but as a map: every point where it broke, who should have acted, and how Lead For Ghana is turning what we did for her into something every child can rely on.
Six places it broke
It began the way it should. The LFG Associate she confided in escalated it immediately. That worked, but only because one person knew what to do. Every adult in every school should.
Then we went to the police. There was no arrest. The Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) should have moved at once. It did not.
Then there was the uniform. We were told the only DNA facility in the country was in Accra, and that we should take it there ourselves. Forensic testing is the state's job, never a family's or an NGO's.
At the school, the accused teacher stayed. The student was moved. The GES district directorate should have done the opposite: remove the accused, not the child.
Her family was threatened until they pleaded with us to withdraw. That intimidation should have brought protection from the police and Social Welfare, and an investigation of its own.
And she needed care we could not give. We found a specialist non-profit because we happened to know who to call. No child should depend on that. Social Welfare and specialist NGOs should have a referral path ready the day she speaks.
Only two of the six worked: the report and her care. Both worked because of people, not process. That is luck, and luck is not a child-protection system.
This is not only her story. At Obuasi SHTS, justice for the girls is also waiting on a DNA test. (GNA)
A network, not a hero
Count who should have acted at each of those six points: at least five different institutions. No single institution can protect a child alone, and none of them did.
That is what I mean by a network: schools, DOVVSU, the Ghana Police Service, GES, Social Welfare and specialist NGOs, each holding one link, and passing a case from one to the next without dropping it.
There is an obvious objection. When everyone is responsible, no one is. Networks can become a place where accountability goes to disappear.
It is a fair challenge. Her case shows it: the school, the police and the community each had a reason to wait for someone else.
So a network only works with three rules:
One owner per link. Every step has a named institution responsible for it.
One case record. Someone holds the full story of each case, so it cannot quietly stall between offices.
Public outcomes. If a case stops, people can see where. Today, JoyNews Research finds recent cases ending at interdiction with no published outcome. (MyJoyOnline)
What Lead For Ghana is building
We did not walk away from her case, and we have not walked away since. But one organisation refusing to give up is not a system. So we are making what we learned permanent.
1. A standing referral partnership. In her case, we found trauma care because we happened to know who to call. We will formalise that partnership with a specialist child-protection non-profit, so every case our LFG Associates surface gets care from day one.
2. Public case tracking. We will track every case Lead For Ghana reports until it is resolved, and publish anonymised outcomes on our website twice a year. Including the cases that stall. Especially those.
3. A pilot district network. We will bring together GES, DOVVSU, Social Welfare and specialist NGOs in one district, and run the six links end to end. We will name that district by 31 January 2027.
What we are asking
We cannot build this alone. That is the whole point.
To GES, DOVVSU and the Department of Social Welfare: work with us in the pilot district. Hold your link, and let us hold you to it, as we will hold ourselves.
To child-protection organisations: join the referral network, so no child depends on who happens to know whom.
To funders: the pilot is not yet funded. If you believe children should be safe in school, this is a specific, measurable place to put that belief.
If you can help, reach out to me directly. daniel@leadforghana.org
What she needed
She did not need heroes. She needed a system that worked: an arrest, a test, a safe classroom, a family left in peace, and care that started the day she spoke.
None of that is beyond us. All of it is overdue.
Our students deserve to be safe when they show up to their schools. We intend to help make sure they are.
