...for searching the private parts of female teacher-trainees

Students of St. Louis Teacher Training College in Kumasi have been joined by some angry members of the public to demand the immediate resignation or dismissal of the Principal of the college for the dehumanising decision to search and inspect the private parts of the over 630 female teacher trainees.

Described by legal practitioner Hannah Tetteh Kpodar as a serious invasion of their privacy and abuse of their rights for which some are also advocating a class action suit, the teacher trainees say, they were forced to line up for the teachers to inspect and search their panties because they suspected that someone had aborted a pregnancy.

Describing how the exercise went, a student recounted that they were lined up and told that they will be checked “by removing our panties to see if you are bleeding. We went to the lab one by one…they touched our breast and looked at our stomachs to see if there is a line on it. It was including the married women and the older women…our house mistresses did the examination. They should apologise and should not repeat it.”

In follow-up interactions on the St. Louis campus, some students agreed with calls for the immediate dismissal of the Principal and the housemistresses who were involved, in addition to their earlier demand for an apology. They insisted that the exercise was most dehumanising, noting that some of the married ones and those who were menstruating at the time felt very embarrassed.

The authorities decision is said to have resulted from the discovery of a bag of sanitary pads soaked in blood behind one of the dormitories, but lawyers say, as a tertiary institution, nothing bars the above 18s from having sex or getting married, noting further that there cannot be any reasonable conclusion of an abortion committed because blood soaked pads have been found.

A tutor, Charles Menya who is also in charge of the laboratory had earlier told Accra based JoyFM that the incident is most unfortunate, suggesting strongly that many of the staff could also be against the decision.

“I have taught at St. Louis Training for eight years and I have not heard anything of that before. Some of them are wives and if you ask a wife to just take the panties for you to look at her vagina to see whether blood is flowing…then indeed it is unfortunate. I don’t think any husband would hear of it and be happy. It was unfortunate it was done at my lab but I wasn’t in.”

Reactions to the incident have been negative towards the college authorities, but some have also questioned why the students went through the ordeal without protest.

Some of the first and second year students who were subjected to the authority’s fantasy said, it was difficult at the time to refuse the instruction, noting that the college and the concerned officials must apologise.

While some of the students will not go for the dismissal of the Principal, others were adamant that the Ghana Education Service must act fast.