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formed on girl child; male adult sex act on boy child; and female adult<br />
performance of the sex on male child. Potentially female adult might<br />
engage a girl child in the sex act, though this did not come to our attention<br />
in the course of the research. 1 The minor in this case may or may<br />
not be a consenting partner, but this is not of much consequence.<br />
There is the second category of rape which involves forcible intercourse<br />
with adult female. Though the culprit could also be a female, no<br />
evidence was found of women raping adult women or men raping<br />
other adult men.<br />
Ga Respondent Accounts of Kabonai -Rape<br />
Data on rape was obtained by asking respondents about their first<br />
sexual act. Discounting wet dreams, today’s youth experienced sex for<br />
the first time in their early teens; the middle aged and older respondents<br />
say they had their first sexual encounters in their late teens, but older<br />
women said they experienced sexual intercourse for the first time when<br />
they married their husbands. Clearly then the age for first sexual experience<br />
has dropped, except for the older female respondents who married<br />
quite early in their days and therefore experienced sexual intercourse<br />
in their teens.<br />
Conclusions Based on the Findings<br />
A number of conclusions may be drawn from the episodes of rape that<br />
respondents have recounted. The media reports show that rape and<br />
child defilement are current, even widespread in the Ghanaian community.<br />
The media reports identify the rapist with a person of low education<br />
and economic status: farmers, primary school teachers, mechanics,<br />
commercial drivers, labourers etc. this may compare to what<br />
Michalski (2005) finds from the literature to be social and demographic<br />
groups at greater risk for intimate partner violence: younger individuals,<br />
people with less education, with low incomes and those living in<br />
poverty, women, minority groups. But in the Ghanaian case we have<br />
also some visible examples, such as the policeman currently (November<br />
2011) in custody for repeatedly defiling a 9-year old (see Daily Graphic<br />
November 14, 2011. p. 49), not to mention that pastor who raped his<br />
own daughter, and the school proprietor who fathered a child by an un-<br />
1<br />
A respondent talked about her involvement in supi supi (lesbianism) when she lost<br />
interest in heterosexual sex as a result of rape. It involved adolescent women of an<br />
age group. Lesbianism is not unknown in boarding schools.<br />
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