The story of an 11-year-old victim of sodomy

A Ghanaian-based Sierra Leonian woman, Ruth Salamatu Kamara, whose eleven-year-old son, Nathaniel was sodomized just last week, has come out to share on Happy FM, the painful ordeal that her son was put through.

Ruth, who has been in Ghana for two years now, narrated that she came to Ghana with her son so that she could study journalism at Etv Ghana’s e-Academy since the course is not taught in her country, and having no friend back in her country, she had no option than to take her son along.

The pained mother, who now works as a waitress in a bar, shared her son’s ordeal with Rev. Nyansa Boakwa on Happy FM’s Nsem Pii saying, “I was going to work for the first time and I told him to stay inside. With this bar work, if there’s a game or something going on, you come home late so the first time, I came home around 10:45 pm and called him on the yam phone that I had given him but he did not pick up. I gave him that phone so that he would call me whenever something was wrong because I’m the only person he knows here.

Now there’s a man called Kweku who lived downstairs, on the same compound.

He’s the only person I talk to in that compound and he was like a brother to me so when I got to the compound, he saw me and told me that my son was with him but I told him that my son is in his room where I left him’’.

According to her, she got to her room and realized that her son was not in the room, so she went back downstairs and told the man that she does not like her son being in people’s rooms, hence he should allow the boy to stay in his own room.

On Friday, the 7th of August, she got home and called his son severally but to no avail. She then called the man, also to no avail.

“I was very mad because I did not understand why they would both see my calls and not pick up so I called my brother and told him about it and he told me to calm down and get some sleep since I knew where my son was. The whole night I couldn’t sleep. I woke up in the morning to clean the house when I saw my son coming. I asked him where he had been and he said he was at the neighbour’s place”.

Salamatu said she angrily went to the man to warn him about his growing habit of harbouring her son, however, it all seemed to have fallen on deaf ears as it happened again the next day when she went to work. She came home to the same situation and knocked severally on the man’s door but he did not open.

The woman called her brother again but as a doctor, he seemed to have been overwhelmed with work and was unable to respond. Little Nathaniel returned home on Sunday morning and Salamatu said that she warned Kweku again.

Later during the day, Kweku brought Jollof to give to Salamatu and her son but with the recent issues between them and her suspicion of him, she refused to eat the food, yet to quit his insisting, took the food and left it on a table. She left for work that Sunday only to come back to find that her son was missing again. She called her brother and her Reverend who came to join her in looking for Nathaniel.

Per her narration, they knocked on Kweku’s door severally and even went to the next house to check if her son was there but he was not. They then went to the back of the house to call Kweku from his window and he finally responded.

The mother, in all anger, shouted at Kweku to let her son come out and upon reaching the compound, another guy named Zack brought out Nathaniel.

“I told Zack to warn Kweku about that habit and I took my son inside together with my brother and Reverend. I asked him severally what he was doing there because he was sweating profusely but he kept saying he was only sleeping.

My motherly instinct told me something was wrong and because I had a cordial relationship with Kweku, I had been to his room a few times and I know that man never turns off his AC.

My brother then started beating him so that he would talk but he still couldn’t talk. I’ve lived with different types of people so, from my son’s reaction, I had a feeling it had to do with sexual assault. I told him to take off his shorts and bend down only to see my son’s anus totally destroyed and dripping with faeces”, Salamatu detailed as she burst into tears.

Salamatu confessed that after her course at e-Academy, she thought of getting a permanent job here, however, following what happened to her son, she is rethinking that decision. She also told Rev. Nyansa that since the tragic incident, she has been noticing some changes in him like shyness when she’s bathing him and her son, who used to be her closest friend and companion, is now gradually shying away from her.

Pastor Nyansa Boakwa called out and pleaded to government officials and the police to see to this issue and ensure that little Nathaniel’s sodomist is brought to justice.