The Gender Ministry has called for the arrest of self-styled pastor who has forced some teenage girls at Bomase in the Upper Manya Krobo district in the Eastern Region to drop out of school after he called them witches.

The yet-to-be-identified pastor has blamed the death of some of the residents in the community on the minors.

The pastor who is believed to be in his twenties sends these girls - mostly between the ages of 12 and 14 - to a hill top to pray and deliver them from their supposed witchcraft but ends up physically abusing them.

A worried member of the community Mary Agbetor told Joy News’ Beatrice Adu that the development is a clear abuse of the girls' rights.

“I am worried, I was informed that a young pastor in the village was accusing the girls of being witches, [and] killing people. The hitherto peaceful community has been divided into factions of witches and wizards.

“This is affecting the girls in school. How can a pastor accuse girls of being witches and bring them into a bush to exorcise them”, she queried.

Mary says the girls are often forced to confess that they are witches.

Deputy Gender Minister, John Alexander Akon has challenged the Police to arrest the man.

“We have children who constitute the future of this country and anything that happens to the children jeopardizes the future of Ghana and to the extent that their rights are being abused and their future is possibly going to be jeopardized, the important thing is for the issue to be reported to the police who will proceed to arrest the culprit”.

He said a welfare policy is being worked on and will be released soon to ensure that issues of this nature are appropriately dealt with.

He added that when this is done “we will do everything to ensure that we come on top of all the issues."