Lady Julia and TLG president (3rd and 4th from R) with some stakeholders
JULIA OSEI Tutu, the wife of Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu, has advised Ghanaians to regard menstruation as a physiological milestone in the life of every girl or woman and not a taboo.
She implored school-going adolescent girls to tolerate menstruation and practise personal hygiene to enable them reach their full potentials in the school and outside school.
The wife of the Asantehene was speaking as the special Guest of Honour at a Menstrual Hygiene and Sexual Abuse Talk programme organised by Touching the Lives of Girls (TLG) Foundation International at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) recently.
Lady Julia, who is the patron TLG, was speaking to some selected female students from the Oforikrom and Asokwa Municipalities ahead of the global Menstrual Hygiene (MH) Day commemoration which is held annually on May 28.
Menstrual practices, she explained, are still clouded by socio-cultural and religious constraints in Ghana and this emphasises the need for adequate menstrual hygiene education.
She encouraged the girls to report any sexual abuse meted out to them by anyone regardless of the person’s position in society.
Lady Julia continued, “Your boldness that you have shown today if anything like that were to happen, I am sure as one of you said you will give that person a dirty slap before he can go any further.”
Elizabeth EffiaTenge, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, said there were certain things the police needed to enable them prosecute and convict sex predators who defile or rape some female students.She urged parents, guardians and teachers to preserve evidences but not contaminate them.
According to her, there are cases of sexual abuse going on but families of the victims are not willing to report them to the police due to the fear of death.
“People have been threatened to believe that when they say that they have been sexually molested they will die and so they will never talk about it,” She said.
FROM David Afum, Kumasi