Saved from a paedophile
I was 16 years old and in senior high school Form Two. My parents provided me with virtually all the things I needed, so all that I had to do was to concentrate on my studies so that I pass the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination with good grades.
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Strangely, I fell in love with the social media and, therefore, spent hours in whatsapping, facebooking and twittering. Initially, it was an avenue for me to make new friends and interact with them but soon it became an addiction.
The idea of having friends abroad who were of different races blew my mind which got me all excited.
Facebook became my favourite social media site since it offered me the opportunity to send friend requests without waiting for the people to take the initiative first. During one of my usual browsing sessions, I sent a friend request to a white youngman whose wall picture on Facebook was really nice. I must say, he was very handsome.
Fortunately, he accepted my request and in no time we were constantly interacting and became very good friends. We soon exchanged telephone numbers, therefore, on occasions that we could not chat on facebook due to network problems, we sent whatsapp messages to each other.
I became so addicted to facebook to the extent that I was reluctant to attend classes and even when I was in class, I hardly paid any attention to what was being taught because I would be chatting on whatsapp. I no longer had time for my books and instead, used most of my time to visit the cafe in order to chat on Facebook.
My facebook friend, Andre, showered me with so much sweet words during our chats and sometimes even sent me some money. I became so happy and that encouraged me to spend more time on social media making new friends to the neglect of my books.
Soon after our mock examinations, Andre informed me that he was coming to the country for a visit. I was very happy and expressed the wish to meet him during the visit, which he readily accepted. Some few months later, Andre was in the country. We agreed to meet at the hotel he was lodging.
I went there without informing anybody because he had asked me not to tell anyone about our friendship which I foolishly agreed.
When I met Andre, I was shocked to find out that he was an old man and not the young man I saw on his Facebook wall. I asked who really he was but he got angry. Before I realised, he was dragging me and trying to rape me.
I began to scream as loud as my lungs could and luckily people heard my shouts and came to my rescue. Andre was arrested by a policeman stationed at the hotel. Later inquiries by the police revealed that Andre, whom I thought was a wonderful person, was a well known paedophile on the police wanted list in his country.
He is known to have travelled to many countries, especially Third World countries such as Ghana to prey on innocent children. I was, therefore, lucky that in my case his cover got blown.
I thanked God so much that day and have since stopped all the social media craze which also had affected my academic work so badly.
Today, I have become a crusader advising the youth on the need to stop spending so much time on social media and be wary of the people they communicate with while on those platforms.
Constance Adwoa Kwarteng,
SHS Graduate,
Weija, Accra.