Kuukuwa Andam, the Ghanaian US-based Law student who has accused the President of the Ghana Bar Association, Anthony Forson Junior of rape is obviously on a mission of bringing out all the ‘immoral activities’ at the Ghana Bar Association.
Kuukuwaa Andam has again revealed how she was raped by some senior Lawyers in Ghana.
She writes;
“How I was raped by some senior male lawyers
#MeToo in Ghana
*Trigger Warning: Rape
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I still remember my excitement the day that I received admission to the Ghana School of Law. My dad had just passed away some months earlier & the lawyer in charge of our case had taken months to make a simple vesting accent to transfer my dad’s properties so I struggled to find money to pay my fees.
Eventually, my mother scraped together some funds to pay my fees & rent me an apartment in Makola market so I could walk to lectures. I had no idea the nightmare that was going to follow. This is my story and not a reflection of the experience of other female lawyers. I am only narrating what happened to me & not commenting on whether or not what I experienced was and is still common place in the legal profession in Ghana.
Law school was tough for me. I could not afford to buy lunch at school & money to make food at my hostel was scarce. I would make photocopies for other students & use the surplus to buy groceries from the market to cook. For the first time in my life, I encountered serious sexual harrassment from my lecturer. Right in the middle of my first year, one of my very married lecturers (he knows himself, I will not mention his name) began to harrass me asking to date me. My friends could not even believe me as this lecturer was very religious so I had to show them his text messages before they believed. I remembered being terrified that he would fail me unless I agreed & navigating the waters not to offend him.
Graduation meant working at a law firm & my dream finally coming true. I had no idea what lay ahead. I quit my first law firm to do my national service & simultaneously work at a different law firm. I loved this different firm till I began to receive flirtatious messages from my senior (the term among Gh lawyers for your boss). One day, his wife arrived at the office & my boss instructed me to meet her in the conference room. She began to yell at me that I was trying to steal her husband & she had text messages to prove it. I was not dating my boss. It was one of my most humiliating experiences ever.
After this incident happened, my boss developed an intense hatred for me. It was like my very presence irritated him. He would yell at me for no reason in front of other people. I had no choice but to stay because I needed the money. After one particularly humiliating experience though it was too much and so I told him I quit. He proceeded to yell at me to leave his office immediately & I had to pack everything out in less than half an hour. I would later find out that after I left, he told his secretary to delete very important, personal information I had on the office computers as a form of revenge. I have forgiven this man & life goes on. I had no idea my life was about to get worse & enter a very dark place.
To be continued…”