Opinions of Saturday, 13 December 2014

Columnist: Mensah, Dzifa

The height of sexual harassments isnow in Parliament

Our legislative arm of government has been turned into haven for sexual harassment.

The extent to which members of parliament who are supposed to be honorable behave in the august house of parliament is appalling and unacceptable. There are growing number cases of sexual harassments in parliament especially to national service persons. We humbly appeal to the Gender minister, Nana Oye Lithur, and Ursula Owusu to take this matter up.

National service personal who innocently help MPs are sexual harassed and threaten by them in various ways.

Some women are threatened by some MPs and senior officers in parliament to have oral sex with them. The situation has been there for long. There are some videos and tapes available to buttress these points. We further urge all the ladies there to record or video any unacceptable conduct meted out to them by those men who are supposed to lead by example. Some women have had their breast pressed by MPs who pretend they are joking. There is no respect for women working there. Some ladies out of fear are unable to report these matters.

This is no joke, this matter must be taken seriously by the speaker and the society in general. There are tapes and videos which would be aired soon for Ghanaians to see those whom they refer to as 'honorable.'' We don't want to disgrace and soil the image of the august house of parliament but if nothing is done about it, we will have no other choice than to give the tapes to the various media houses.

Furtherance to this, we urge Anas and Manneseh to move their work there, and would be shocked what they will uncover.

We expect the speaker to act. We intend to air the tapes in the new year if nothing is done about it before the end of the year.

Thanks.

Regards

Dzifa