Don't deny prisoners the right to have sex; it's a basic human need - KEEA MCE Ebow Appiah
Solomon Ebow Appiah, Municipal Chief Executive of Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem Municipality (KEEA), says that when one looks at the Abraham Maslow hierarchy of needs, it talks about basic needs including sex and that when people are in prison for as long as 15, 20, 60 years without sex, one is depriving them of their basic need.
According to him, if the country is not careful, the laws that prohibit lesbianism and gayism will be flaunted in prison because people may come to the prison to learn these acts because there is no opportunity for them (prisoners) to satisfy their basic needs, which is sex. Solomon Ebow Appiah, Municipal Chief Executive of Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem Municipality (KEEA), says that when one looks at the Abraham Maslow hierarchy of needs, it talks about basic needs including sex and that when people are in prison for as long as 15, 20, 60 years without sex, one is depriving them of their basic need.
According to him, if the country is not careful, the laws that prohibit lesbianism and gayism will be flaunted in prison because people may come to the prison to learn these acts because there is no opportunity for them (prisoners) to satisfy their basic needs, which is sex.
Mr Appiah made the appeal at the maiden non-formal education graduation ceremony of 43 inmates of the Ankaful Prisons in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem Municipality of the Central region.
He urged that the country must find a way to brainstorm to find ways to include sex as a basic need for the inmates after giving them all the other needs.
"We had a criminal libel law in the past, it took the then president who realised that the law have been in the books for so long; which hindered the works of the journalist and impeded on their rights of reportage. However, it took the initiative of the then-president and the collective agreement of Ghanaians to overturn that law, and today there is information freedom. So, if journalist have the right to information and report, then prisoners ought to have theirs as well, although they are imprisoned, they are part of us, because no matter how long they serve they will be released one day after they have done serving their sentence, and they will be back home and back into the community, hence there is the need for a reform," he hinted.
He said the line between prisoners and the free man is very thin, hence those in the prisons are just like us, so if we do not make the prison yard and the lives of the inmates very conducive, then invariably we are creating problems for the country.
He called on all to come together to support the Prisoners as they were being trained to go out to change their lives, thus, "the prison is intended to reform and to reintegrate them into the community".
DDP Robin Kwesi Asamoah Fenning, the Central Regional Deputy Director of Prisons who also serves as the OIC of the Maximum Security Prison, thanked the non-formal education sector for the training and appealed for urgent assistance from stakeholders, benevolents, religious bodies, NGOs, corporate institutions, and others to come to their aid in order to register the 43 inmates to sit for the Basic Education Certificate Examination this year.
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