Gender-based violence is one of the highly reported criminal cases in Ghana. According to the annual crime statistics (2017) from the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ghana Police Service, it was reported that Rape and Defilement formed part of the major offences in Ghana, which were considered the most serious and attracted public concern. Other offences were murder, robbery and possession and use of narcotic drugs.
This blog will highlight the defilement cases reported to the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service. It will also give a visual experience of the number of defilement cases reported in 2016 and 2017 and the change that occurred in the number of reported cases over the period. The reported cases were gathered from all ten regions across Ghana.
From the report, it is clear that Accra recorded the highest number of reported defilement cases in both years (2016-2017); having 308 cases in 2016 and 534 in 2017. The second region is Ashanti, with a 156 cases reported in 2016 and 209 in 2017. The regions that had the fewest reported cases were Northen region, Upper East and Upper West.
The visualization below gives a visual representation of reported defilement cases in Ghana from 2016 to 2017.
(Source : Statistics and Information Technology Unit (SITU), CID Headquarters Accra)
The change in the reported cases over the years were also recorded. The visualization gives you a clear view of how reported cases either increased or declined. Western region was the only region that reported the same number of defilement cases in both years. Accra recorded the highest change in reported cases, with an increase of 73.4. The Volta and Upper West regions (including Tema) recorded a decline in reported cases over the 2 years.
(Source : Statistics and Information Technology Unit (SITU), CID Headquarters Accra)