Lesbian gang-raped by five boys on her 14th birthday
A 14-year-old lesbian has been raped in Ghana.
Mariam, who lives in the capital of Accra, met up with her male friend on her birthday.
He told her he had a present for her, and led her back to his home.
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It was there that she discovered that the boy she thought was her friend had invited four other boys there to rape her.
They hit her in the face before pinning her to the bed.
“It was my friend who started with the rape,” she told Ghanaian publication Joy News.
Mariam passed out during the horrific assault.
The rapists impregnated her, and she gave birth a few months before her 15th birthday.
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The child was given to another family member.
Mariam has attempted suicide four times since the rape, which has gone unpunished in the seven years since it occurred.
She spoke about how the rape affected her mental health, saying: “I started behaving like a mad girl.
“I was down. Sometimes I would scream; I would shout.
“I was admitted to the psychiatric hospital, moving from hospital to hospital, from medication to medication just to bring me back to normal,” Mariam recalled.
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The trauma has been made worse by one of her rapists sending her taunting messages saying he would never be arrested for what he did to her.
He was right.
Mariam said: “We were supposed to arrest them, but the police are not willing to support [me]. I don’t know why.”
In her community in the town of Mataheko, she said rape was seen as a minor crime.
“I am not the first and am not the last.”
“Gang rape is normal,” she added.
Mariam said that she and her father go to the local police station every so often to report her rapists’ whereabouts, but to no avail.
“The policeman will say he is the only person in the station and cannot leave to arrest a mere criminal,” she said.
Mariam, who is now 21, has been in a same-sex relationship for more than a year.
Her parents have been crucial to improving her mental health, she said.
“My mum and my dad – they have done all that they could do.
“Even though I am the first child I am pampered like a last baby.”
