Parliament orders sex offenders register, independent abuse hotline after Obuasi SHTS scandal

Ghana's Parliament has taken decisive action in the wake of the explosive Obuasi Senior High Technical School (SHTS) abuse scandal, issuing a raft of far-reaching directives that go well beyond the immediate criminal case — including calls for a national sex offenders register, an independent abuse-reporting mechanism, and a nationwide safeguarding audit of all second-cycle institutions across the country.

The directives were issued jointly by the Parliamentary Select Committees on Human Rights, Gender, Children and Social Welfare, and Education, following a briefing from the Ministers for Education and Gender, Children and Social Protection on the state of investigations and intervention strategies at the school.

What Parliament has ordered

At the centre of the directives is an instruction to the Ministry of Interior and the Inspector General of Police to expedite criminal proceedings against the school's interdicted headmaster, Zakaria Abdulai. The judiciary has also been asked to treat the case with maximum urgency, with Parliament describing a swift conviction as a necessary national deterrent.

Critically, the committees issued a stark warning to religious leaders and political figures, ordering them to stop interfering with the criminal justice process — a signal that pressure may already be building behind the scenes to shield those implicated.

On protecting survivors, the Ministry of Education has been directed to strictly enforce anti-victimisation policies. Any individual — student, parent or staff — found intimidating or stigmatising survivors faces immediate prosecution under the Children's Act. The identity of every survivor must remain legally protected.

Parliament declared that the current internal GES channels for reporting sexual misconduct are fundamentally broken, and directed the Ministry of Education to co-design an independent, third-party reporting system that completely bypasses local school heads, routing student complaints directly to a centralised, protected national registry.

The committees further directed the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to work with relevant institutions to establish a Register of Sexual Offenders — a measure Parliament believes will act as a long-term structural deterrent across the education system and beyond.

The Ministry of Education has also been tasked with launching an urgent, independent safeguarding audit across all boarding and day second-cycle schools in Ghana, examining student safety, housing vulnerability, and staff compliance with the GES Code of Conduct. All teachers are to receive formal training on the Code of Conduct as part of a broader reform package.

Psychological and medical support for survivors will continue through a partnership between the Ministry of Gender and the Ghana Health Service, with trauma-informed counselling and medical monitoring guaranteed to all victims at the state's expense.

Why it matters for Ghana

The Obuasi SHTS scandal, brought to national attention through the investigative journalism of Manasseh Azure Awuni, exposed what the committees themselves described as systemic sexual abuse, exploitation, and institutional failure within a publicly funded school. It has reignited long-standing concerns about child safety in Ghana's boarding school system, where students — many of them teenagers far from home — are entirely dependent on school authorities for their welfare and protection.

The scale of the response from Parliament reflects how seriously the revelations have shaken public confidence in the Ghana Education Service. For years, critics have argued that internal GES reporting mechanisms protect perpetrators rather than victims, and Parliament's acknowledgement that those channels are broken is a significant admission that structural reform is overdue.

The proposed sex offenders register, if established, would be a landmark development in Ghana's child protection framework, bringing the country closer in line with safeguarding standards seen in other jurisdictions. It would also mark a shift from reactive punishment towards proactive, systemic accountability.

What happens next

Both the Education and Gender ministers will be required to provide regular progress briefings to Parliament, and the Joint Committees have pledged active oversight until all criminal prosecutions are concluded and structural reforms fully implemented. With parliamentary scrutiny now firmly in place, pressure on the ministries to deliver tangible results — rather than paper commitments — will be considerable.

• Headmaster Zakaria Abdulai has been interdicted pending criminal proceedings.
• Parliament warns religious and political actors against interfering in the justice process.
• A national sex offenders register and independent student reporting system are among key reforms ordered.