While in some communities cases are treated with utmost seriousness, in others, interventions by opinion leaders and elders have often thwarted any effort at bringing defaulters to book.
Although such interventions are outlawed, they continue to play a role in keeping the crime away from the radar of the law enforcement agents.
Respectable elders in bucolic communities often intervene to ask that defilement cases are not sent to the police so that, as they put it, they can be managed at home, away from the eyes of the world. With the respect they wield, the words of such elders or opinion leaders ultimately supersede everything else, as poor victims are overruled, the exigent medical attention they require notwithstanding.
Some of the abuses have resulted in worrying health and moral challenges, as contained in the unfolding piece.
No day passes without reported cases of defilement and while some do not attract much attention, because of what one can describe as the borderline ages of victims -16 and 17- others are just outrageous- with victims of ages 5 and 9.
Bureaucratic challenges impeded our efforts at attracting an input from the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service, by way of statistics and what in their opinion is the state of the crime in the country.
When our reporters turned up at the Ministries office of DOVVSU on appointment, they were directed to the Police Headquarters where they met a stonewall, having been told to apply in writing to be heard.
We found the treatment reprehensible, given our desire to get this crucial stakeholder in the desire by all well-meaning Ghanaians to stamp out this abominable crime of child defilement.
Had we decided to apply as though seeking enlistment into the police, arms folded and waiting for a response, this article would have died in its embryonic stage.
This article is therefore bereft of a word from DOVVSU because of excessive officialdom.
Such outmoded approach to biting challenges is the reason why attempts at remedying them remains elusive, even as paedophiles prowl our communities with reckless and understandable confidence- they can easily secure bail and manouvre their way out.
It is unimaginable just how an adult male can develop lust for a five-year-old baby to the extent of attempting such a crime.
When an adult male of about 50 defiles an eight-year-old girl, he qualifies to be sent for psychiatric examination to isolate any medical challenge, before even considering invoking the law, because of the weirdness of the crime.
With many such cases in our society, and counting, we definitely require an intervention of a sort from stakeholders, a remedy which appears to be many light years away from our reach.
Seeking reasons for the penchant for such uncanny lust will require an intellectual occupation outside the purview of a newspaper article which suffers space and factual constraints.
Suffice it to mention however that some cases are shrouded in spiritualism, as spiritualists demand that their clients undertake crazy sexual orgies such as defilement.
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