Free help at Korle Bu Child Abuse Centre
Children and parents who have cases involving child abuse can walk into the Child Abuse Protection Centre at the Child Health Department of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital to seek free medical and professional help.
A consultant at the Child Health Department at the hospital, Prof. Eben Badoe, who disclosed this in an interview with the Junior Graphic in Accra, said the centre handled all kinds of child abuse cases, including sexual abuse (which is the commonest case it sees); instances of physical abuse, such as caning and hitting a child; emotional abuse, as well as other cases that might present themselves as sexual abuse but which, on investigations, might be a medical problem.
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"One of the reasons for setting up the centre is to make life so simple without any complexity. So if you have any child abuse concerns, there is no protocol — just show up at the centre,” he said.
“There is a nurse who is expected to be there always. If you come after normal working hours, the doctors at the Outpatients Department of the Child Health Department will attend to you, and if they are satisfied that your case is, indeed, one of child abuse, they will refer you to the centre," he explained.
Prof. Badoe mentioned the services offered by the centre to include a medical evaluation to determine whether the abuse against the child was sexual, physical or emotional abuse or neglect.
He explained that the evaluation was done to determine whether the abuse had taken place or not, after which a medical report was sent to the police, who would use that report to prosecute the case.
"We may also be asked by the courts to provide evidence on the case," he added.
Furthermore, he said, the centre offered counselling to the abused children if it became necessary, adding that the counselling involved the services of clinical psychologists and laboratory tests, depending on how the investigations progressed.
Cases seen at the centre
Prof. Badoe said presently it appeared that members of the public were not aware of the existence of the centre, for which reason they did not walk in to seek its services, as was anticipated when the centre was inaugurated in 2009, adding that most of the cases the centre had been seeing were hospital referred ones.
He disclosed that the centre saw an average of two cases of child abuse a week and between 150 and 300 cases a year.
He gave the age range of the children normally sent to the centre for help as being between two and 12 years, adding that there was an occasion when the centre handled the case of a four-month-old baby girl who had been sexually abused.
"Some of the cases are so bizarre and serious, and you don't understand why some people did that to children. Most often, the caregivers don't think that what they are doing to the children constitutes child abuse,” he said.
“We have had instances of deteriorating school performance among children, and when the cases were referred to the centre, we uncovered sexual abuse to be the reason. We have seen a child with a head injury, and when we investigated, we realised it was not a normal head injury but rather something that had been intentionally visited on the child," he disclosed.
Prof. Badoe said there were a lot of child abuse cases going on out there, for which reason children needed the support of society to fight those cases.
He said child abuse had long-term effects on the child, including loss of self-esteem, psycho-social or psychiatric issues, anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies.
He said some of the more serious sexual abuse cases might also require three or four surgeries before the child would be okay.
What is child abuse?
Prof. Badoe defined child abuse as anything that we do or do not do that harms a child's growth and development.
"So if you insult a child every day, it is a form of abuse because you are emotionally abusing the child. Caning and beating are forms of physical abuse, while sexual abuse includes exposing a child to pornography and transactional sex, which includes giving something such as shelter, food and money in exchange for sex," he added.
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