Photos: Mother and her two children released from 3 months jail sentence for ‘collecting’ leftover corn worth 10 cedis

A woman and her two daughters were rescued after court sentenced them to three months in prison for collecting some leftover corn estimated at GH¢10 which did not belong to them.

According to Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng of Crime Check Foundation, a court found them guilty and consequently sentenced all three including a lactating mother after they were unable to raise GH¢360 slapped on them.

He revealed that Black Stars winger, Christian Atsu came to the rescue of the convicts and through the Crime Check Foundation donated GH¢1000 for their release.

They were released today, Tuesday, October 16, 2018. Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng wrote:

“Cases like this make a strong case for a review of Ghana’s criminal justice laws. They may not have had permission for collecting the left overs from the farm, but in a country where poverty is endemic in most rural communities, what some rural folks do is to go searching for rejected harvested corn to keep their families alive. Sadly the innocent baby of Joyce had to follow the mum to prison. They tell me their farmlands have been sold out to a company, so they have to go looking for corn which offers them Akple twice a day. Fortunately, a good Samaritan has paid for their 360 court fine to enable them go home on Tuesday to continue with their huzzle. You can imagine the joy on their faces when CCF donated 1000 cedis to them from Black Stars winger, Christian Atsu. Meanwhile some big men chop state funds and use technicalities to go Scot free in court. What a country we live in! We at CCF will continue to advocate the passage of the Non custodial sentencing bill into law to save the poor and the voiceless. Such a law could have prescribed community sentence at least for these women instead of pushing them and the innocent baby into prison”

Posting photos after their release, Mr Kwarteng wrote:

“It was all smiles today as family of three jailed for collecting corn left overs are released from prison. We took them all the way to their hometown at Okosu in the Eastern region. I have never seen the level of poverty I saw today at Okosu in my entire life”