Why not jail teachers who sexually abuse students?

* Robert Kelly’s downfall

* Manasseh Azure’s Inside the Dreaded Headmaster’s Bungalow

* Victims share their ordeals

* System failure is the main cause of this canker

Robert Kelly could easily be considered the best and most popular RNB singer of the millennials. Those of us who had our high school education in the mid 2000s enjoyed tracks like: The Storm Is Over, Fiesta, Ignition, Thoia Thong, Snake, Step in the Name of Love, U Saved Me, Happy People, Hotel, Same Girl, I’m a Flirt and many other great songs during entertainment hours.

He was on top of his game when he worked with Category A artists including Usher, Jay Z, Cassidy, Snoop Dogg, Twista, T Pain, Ludacris, The Game, The Isle Brothers, Akon, Sean Paul and T.I among many others.

I just took my time to list some of the legendary songs from R. Kelly, which still sound great after two or three decades. I mentioned the artists to remind you how great Robert Kelly was.

The Singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor earned the nicknames “the King of R&B”, “the King of Pop-Soul”, and “the Pied Piper of R&B”. Billboard has him ranked as the 9th greatest R&B artist of all time.

This is a great musician; where is Robert Kelly now?

R. Kelly was convicted in September 2021 in New York on racketeering and sex trafficking charges, and received a 30-year sentence in 2022. He was then convicted in Chicago of child pornography and enticing minors, and the judge gave him a 20-year sentence, nearly all of it served at the same time as the New York term, so he will serve no more than 31 years in total. A federal appeals court upheld the Chicago sentence, and the Supreme Court declined to hear his case in June 2025. He is now held in a North Carolina prison and has filed a clemency request seeking a shorter sentence, with release not expected until around January 2046, while he continues to deny the allegations.

The system protects minors in the Western world, unlike Ghana, where men who foolishly abuse minors go free.

If famous, important and super figures like Kelly are exposed by the laws in the USA, why must anybody be protected by Ghana’s?

The Obuasi Senior High Technical School’s headmaster’s sex case against his students is shocking.

Inside The Dreaded Headmaster’s Bungalow, investigative journalist Manasseh Awuni Azure alleges that Mr Zakaria Abdulai, a former teacher at Juaben Senior High School and Tepa Senior High School, has sexually abused female students between 14 and 16 years old.

Reports say that the abuse spans over a year, with authorities ignoring all complaints by the distressed female students. The saddest part is that female teachers ignored the reports made by the victims.

It is the norm in our basic and secondary schools now because nobody in authority is willing to protect the young students. When a teacher sexually abuses a student, he is just transferred to another school as if transfer is a form of punishment.

In the Bole Senior High School in Ghana’s Savannah Region, a Chemistry and Physics teacher was recorded having s**** with his student at the school’s Science Laboratory. The Ghana Education Service interdicted him and later dismissed him. When police declared him wanted, Arafat was nowhere to be found in all of Ghana – this is purely a system failure.

Some of the victims’ ordeal

Victims’ names and identities are undisclosed!

Victim 1: “He held my hand and used it to rub his manh00d, took off my shorts and forced himself on me. After that, he gave me GH¢100 and warned me not to mention it to anyone.”

Victim 2: “He gave me oil and asked me to stroke his private parts. When I refused, he reminded me that he had locked me in and nobody knew I was in his bungalow, threatening that he could k*ll me and nobody would find out. He ejaculated four times before allowing me to leave.”

Victim 3: The head master ordered her to cook for him. “The headmaster touched me inappropriately, says Victim 3

Victim 4: “He told me to cook for him and started touching me.” The alleged incident left Victim D traumatised, and she has vowed never to return to the school.

What are the causes of this barbaric act?

The system that should protect these girls has too often failed them. When allegations surface, offenders are often moved to another school, quietly interdicted, or left waiting through slow investigations, while the people who raised the alarm are left exposed.

The recent allegations in the news show how long complaints can circulate before anyone acts. Where punishment is slow, weak or missing, teachers who are tempted learn that the risk is low. Severe, visible consequences, including dismissal, prosecution where the evidence supports it, and a ban from ever teaching again, are the only message that will change behaviour.

Society must also accept its share of the blame. Too many parents, teachers and communities teach girls to stay silent, to avoid shame, and to protect the reputation of a respected teacher and the family as well.

Young people need to be told clearly and early that no adult has the right to touch them, that they will be believed, and that they will not be punished for speaking up.

Schools need safe, confidential ways to report abuse, and communities need to stand with the girl and not with the accused. Until we make it safe to speak and costly to offend, these stories will keep returning, and more girls will pay the price.

In too many Ghanaian schools, a teacher’s bungalow has become a place of quiet danger. Teachers invite female students to their homes, supposedly to serve them or to run errands, and a girl who is told by a teacher to come cannot easily say no.

Teachers must serve jail time for sexually abusing female students

It is high time Ghana passed a law to protect the young and innocent female students at the junior and senior high school levels. Some female teachers have intentionally been sexually abusing their students simply because no law will prosecute them. Aside from interdiction and outright dismissal, our laws must jail the offenders, just like New York law jailed Robert Kelly. These offences must be considered Category A crimes because the ripple effects on the young female students are unimaginable.