The Minister for Children and Social Protection Cynthia Morrison has said that the ministry has officially written to the police to investigate the General Manager of Echoing Hills Village orphanage over an alleged maltreatment of the orphans .
The Minister is worried after watching the gory incidents and criminal activities captured in the latest Anas Aremeyaw Anas exposé.
The investigation captured the Manager of the orphanage, Reverend Lamina physically abusing the children of the orphanage to the extent of drawing out a knife to stab one of them who had committed an offence.
In the Video, a child was also seen eating his own fecal matter after being locked up in what they call “prison” for wrong doers in the orphanage.
Anas Aremeyaw Anas investigation also revealed that the orphanage allegedly sells food stuffs donated to the home.
Speaking to Citi FM, the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection said the workers of the Social Welfare have been sent to the orphanage to monitor the situation there.
She added that she personally visited the orphanage and interviewed some of the children.
“Even when I went there, I interviewed some. And you could see that some of them were traumatized but didn’t want to talk… I don’t know if they were signaled behind me. Because I was also observing and didn’t want them to know. But since we are sending our social workers there, there is going to be a difference,” she said.
Mrs Morrison also said the ministry would send some psychologists to talk to and examine the children in order to know what has been going on during their stay at the orphanage.
She noted that the ministry cannot close the orphanage down since a lot of children are still in the custody of Echoing Hills Village orphanage.
Background
The Echoing Hills Village, established in 1994 by Rev Cordell Brown at Madina-Ogbojo.
The recent Tiger-eye PI investigation shows that the orphanage has gradually been turned into a den of debauchery with the immoral and psychological development of its child inmates severely compromised.
Secret filming in the orphanage revealed that both caretakers and children in the home are having a field day as far as sexual escapades are concerned, as the authorities turn a blind eye to the practice while victims who dare to complain or take action are rather punished and petrified into submission.
The facility was established to serve as a home for the homeless, orphans, neglected children including; children with disabilities, special children, and victims of child abuse including sexual abuse. But now, it is a rather inhospitable place for anyone seeking solace from abuse, much more sexual abuse.
Caretakers and Inmates Sleeping with Girls in the Orphanage
In a conversation that was secretly filmed, an inmate of the home by the name Kushi narrated how he continuously had sex with one of the girls in the orphanage and how the same girl graces the bed of a caretaker of the orphanage also.
According to Kushi, he usually sleeps with the girl in question by the name Nana Akua (not her real name) in some of their classrooms after everyone had left the premises.
The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), Mrs Cynthia Morrison, has called for an end to all forms of violence against children.
‘Stop violence against children’
In a speech read on her behalf by the Chief Director of the ministry, Dr Hafisa Zackaria, at the launch of an advocacy campaign dubbed: “Stop Violence Against Children”, the minister reiterated Ghana’s position on promoting and ensuring the protection of children.
The call comes on the back of a research conducted by the ministry and OAfrica, a non-governmental organisation focused on the well-being of children, and funded by the European Union (EU).
