PAY COMPENSATION TO DEFILEMENT VICTIMS (PAGE 54, JUNE 16, 2010)

THE Volta Regional Co-ordinator of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU), Mr Augustine Dogbega has called for the payment of compensation to defilement victims to reduce the trauma of their ordeal.
He said for now, defilement as a criminal act only led perpetrators into jail and the victims left to go home without anything, adding that efforts must be made to make the proposed victim support fund functional.
Mr Dogbega was delivering an address on the topic: “The Domestic Violence Act; The roles of the law enforcement agencies in its implementation” at a day’s sensitisation workshop on domestic violence act in Ho.
It was organised by the Department of Women in the Volta Region with sponsorship from the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands.
Mr Dogbega said nobody was allowed to settle cases of defilement except at the law courts.
He said such cases should not be delayed because there had been few instances where parents concealed the crime until serious infections occurred before they were forced to rush to the police and hospitals.
The acting Volta Regional Director of Department of Women, Ms Thywill Eyra Dordor, said domestic violence had become a pertinent societal issue that had inundated the media in recent times.
She said domestic violence was on the ascendancy, hence the need for stakeholders to discuss the issue and to solicit support to reverse the trend.
Ms Dordor disclosed that 149 cases of defilement, 24 cases of rape and 147 cases of assault were recorded last year, adding that more defilement cases were expected, analysing the trend so far.
Delivering a lecture on the topic: “The role of various stakeholders in the fight against domestic violence”, a principal investigator of the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Mr Charles Mensah, said every citizen was a stakeholder in the fight against domestic violence.
He said failure on the part of anybody to report cases on domestic violence to the police could be charged of abetment of crime.
Mr Mensah said CHRAJ had the mandate to offer remedies for cases, as well as the power to investigate human rights violation associated with domestic violence.
He stated that no stakeholder could single-handedly tackle the problem of domestic violence, and therefore called on stakeholders to join forces to reduce it to the barest minimum.
Speaking on the topic: “The effects of domestic violence on the family and society,” the Assistant Director of the Department of Social Welfare, Mr Peter Hlovor, said families should desist from creating tension at homes to the detriment of peace.
He said families should support victims rather than rebuking them for undermining their perpetrators.
Mr Hlovor advised families to peacefully co-exist and depend on one another to avoid quarrel because it was a major source of disintegration of families.