Marvel’s Article: Wrongly Taken to Prison as a Boy

Article #27 in the YCC Kids Club Ghana Student Life Stories Project
The Day I Will Never Forget: Prison
By Marvel, Age 13

As the only child of my parents, I have been lucky that my family has tried to fulfill everything I have requested of them. I am therefore a happy child. However, on December tenth, 2007, there was a day that I will never forget in my life: a day when I felt very sad.

We were on vacation, so when I got up from bed, I took my breakfast, said goodbye to my parents, and went straight to my friend Kofi Mensah’s house. We had planned already to play football on our school park with some other friends. Kofi was washing his school uniforms, so his father offered me a seat in his sibling’s room.

When Kofi finished washing, we went to the game venue. We were a shade late, so when we got there our friends had already dressed up and were waiting for us. The match kicked off at ten in the morning.

Twenty minutes into the game, Kofi’s father sent a boy to call us. When we arrived back in his house, Mr. Badu said that a large sum of money was missing from his house, and he suspected that we had taken it. We repeated that we could not do such a thing, but Mr. Badu was so furious that he took us to the police station. Over there, he asked them to beat us with a cane until we said the truth.

What saddened me most was that the policeman actually did give us fifteen cane strokes. He beat us hard on our backs, and never even asked us anything. After that, the police put us in the cells. The room was so dark and stinking that breathing was very difficult for us.

When my parents got wind of our plight, it was an awful shock for them, because they knew I had never stolen as much as one pesewa before. They hurriedly came to pay the bail money, and we were released from the cells.

While my parents were deliberating about the issue in the evening, Kofi’s father, Mr. Badu, and his brothers came in. What was their mission? They had come to apologize because they had found the money and thus it was not us who had taken it at all.

My parents did not utter a word until they we shamefully arrived back home. In fact, on that day I became very sad. I am NOT a thief, and I never will be!

Nowadays, Ghanaian police are less frequently abusing citizens like that because our new president is cracking down on police corruption. However, I will never in my life forget that awful day I spent in jail, wrongfully accused!

Lillie’s Note: Please leave Marvel a comment on his powerful article, stating your geographical location!