Human Rights Lawyer and Executive Member of FIDA Ghana, Irene Aborchie-Nyahe has disclosed that young girls between the ages of 16 and below are mostly defiled by family members.

Speaking on JoyNews' The Law, she revealed that her comment follows a survey her outfit did in a school in Sakumono.

"We gave them papers and asked them to be anonymous but give their ages and answer the question, have you ever been abused sexually? if yes, by who?"

"You would be amazed by the number of girls that wrote that they have been sexually abused by their stepfathers, fathers and brothers. There is a lot of incest going on," she said.

Mrs Aborchie-Nyahe told Samson Lardy Aynenini, host of the show, that at least 70% of the children in her Sakumono survey have either been defiled or had some indecent sexual advances made towards them.

The Private Legal Practitioner stressed that defilement cases need more attention, however, lack of structures to effectively deal with the situation victimises the child.

"The child is given a form to go to the hospital, he/she gets to the hospital, they ask what happened. This child will narrate from beginning to end (what ensued)."

"He/she is then transferred to another person and they keep asking the same question, the child gets victimised at every point."

For Mrs Aborchie-Nyahe, an institution must be set up for the purpose of taking care and paying attention to the needs of these young victims.

She explained that with an institution in place, "the child doesn't get re-traumatized especially since she doesn't have to repeat the story over and over again."

Mrs Aborchie-Nyahe urged the government to establish shelters for the purposes of protecting young girls adding it will help provide an alternative to living with abusive family members.