A 38-year-old farmer at Ayisakro, a community near Axim in the Nzema East Municipality of the Western Region, Kwabena Ebo has been jailed for ten years for attempting to sell his son to a fetish priest for money.
He was arrested in April 2022 with the help of the fetish priest popularly known as Nana Tano Kwaw.
The priest reported the accused to the Police when he approached him and requested him to use his son for rituals for him to get money.
From the facts of the matter, the fetish priest rejected the request but the man who was bent to make money from his son went home and returned to the shrine of the priest ready to sell his son for an amount of Five Hundred Thousand Ghana cedis (GHC 500,000).
When he was arraigned before the Takoradi Circuit Court B, Kwabena Ebo was charged for the trading of a person contrary to sections 2(1) & (2) of the Human Trafficking Act 694 of 2001.
The accused who showed remorse pleaded guilty to the charge and asked the court to be lenient on him.
The court presided over by Her Lordship Abigail Anima Asare indicated that the accused was guilty of the charges preferred against him and as such, deserves a stiffer punishment to serve as a deterrent to others.
As a result, the court sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment.
Speaking to the media, the fetish priest said he is satisfied with the sentence.
“I think it is a good punishment. I saw how remorseful the accused was in the courtroom but nothing could have saved him at that particular moment. He will learn his lessons next time,” he said.
CCF’s crime prevention advocacy
Aside from paying for the fines of petty offenders, Crime Check Foundation (CCF) has introduced programmes including the latest ‘Stay Away From Trouble’ as part of its crime prevention advocacy project.
Through these programmes CCF cautions the general public against acts that could land them in trouble in a bid to curb crime.
The Foundation screens one-on-one interviews with prison inmates bringing to bear acts that landed them in prison and the difficulties they face in custody.
It has also paid the fines of many petty offenders for their release and integrated them into society.
