Private orphanages in for cash
It appears the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) will have to battle the issue of poorly managed orphanages in the country for a long time to come.
Advertisement
In recent times, a number of privately-owned orphanages have been closed down with the owners accused of mainly managing the homes for financial gains.
Data at the DSW indicates that 23 orphanages were closed down in 2014. More than 2,000 children from the 23 homes were united with their families by the department, while others were adopted or put in foster care.
Between 2012 and September 2013, the DSW locked up 45 homes for not meeting or complying with standards.
Currently, there are approximately 6,000 children living in the 120 residential homes across the country. Out of the number, only three are government–run. These are the Osu Children’s Home in Accra, the Tamale Children’s Home in the Northern Region and the Kumasi Children’s Home in the Ashanti Region.
A hard-hitting documentary produced recently by ace investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas has brought to light the horrific treatment that children in the Countryside Children’s Welfare Home at Bawjiase in the Central Region had gone through.
After six months of living in the orphanage, Mr Anas and his team of investigators uncovered that not only were the donations of well-meaning individuals and institutions finding their way into the pocket of the founder but the children were starved.
Additionally, the investigations which were carried out with support from the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) and titled: ‘Care’ less: the devil and the orphanage,” revealed that the children were poorly fed, abused and neglected by the caregivers and the founder of the home, Mrs Emma Boafo Yeboah.
Schoolchildren in the Countryside Basic School, which is the educational wing of the home, were physically abused or caned by teachers for minor misdemeanour.
Apart from the lack of proper health care, students also told stories of how girls were made to undergo abortion after they had been impregnated by their male schoolmates, the son of the Yeboahs and a cobbler from Bawjiase.
A child in a video released after the undercover investigations told the investigators how he intended to escape from the home to beg on the streets of Kasoa in the Central Region.
“I want to leave. I am not going back to that place. The woman (referring to the founder of the home) hates me. She maltreats me for nothing. She is always looking for an opportunity to beat me,” he said after he had been beaten mercilessly for allegedly stealing some items from the room of Mrs Yeboah.
In response to the issue of child protection reforms, the Department of Social Welfare is to ensure that residential homes meet the best standards to continue their operation in the best interest of the children in the home.
“We admit that in spite of our efforts to create a conducive atmosphere in residential homes for orphans and vulnerable children, some system challenges arise once in a while, and that might have contributed to this exposé,” a Deputy Minister of Gender Children and Social Protection, Mr Alexander Ackon, noted.
He said the ministry, which had a mandate to protect children especially orphans and the vulnerable, had always responded swiftly to “any issue of child
