Soldier Bar owners demolish parts of structure

pg 24. Mon. March 03/08

Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE Parliamentary Caucus on Population says it will not hesitate to close down or demolish the Soldier Bar, a brothel at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra.
The Chairman of the Caucus, Madam Teresa Tagoe, said this when members visited the brothel to have a first hand view on how the place was operated and later recommend actions that needed to be taken.
The members expressed their shock and disgust at the horrible conditions under which people, including children practise prostitution, when they visited the place.
The brothel was in the news in December last year after more than 150 suspected prostitutes including children were rounded up by the police who raided the area.
The parliamentarians were accompanied by some members of the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs, the police, CID, Social Welfare and the Department of Children.
The brothel, situated behind the Airport-Circle taxi rank, has a drinking bar at its frontage with over 50 cubicles behind has been operational for decades where both the young and old patronised it.
The cubicles which are about 4 feet x 4 feet square has only a make-shift bed and mattress in them with the doors, which are often locked when occupied, serving as the only ventilation.
It also has four smaller cubicles serving as bath rooms and toilets which are also used by the prostitutes.
The area where the brothel is situated stinks and poses a health hazard to its occupants as it is near a big gutter that runs behind it.
Although the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has written a “stop work” notice on one of the structures, business was still booming as the place was still operational.
Although no body from the brothel was around when members of the caucus visited the place, some elderly couples suspected to be customers were seen leaving one of the rooms to avoid a confrontation.
Three young men despite the heat at the place due to its low ceiling, were seen fast asleep in one of the rooms.
One of them when confronted said they did not have money to patronise hotels and therefore they resulted to such cheap places.
The Chairman of the Caucus, Madam Teresa Amerley Tagoe, in an interview said the caucus was going to meet on Tuesday, March 4, 2008, to take a final decision which would be sent to parliament for action to be taken on the place.
She said the place was dehumanising and did not understand why people would want to have pleasure in such places.
Madam Tagoe said it was the duty of the members to protect the interest of all people including children and therefore would not hesitate to recommend its demolishing.
She was of the view that raiding the place was not going to solve the problem but rather there was the need for concrete steps to be taken.
The Greater Accra Regional Co-ordinator of the Department of Children, Mr Peter Akyea who was with the MPs in an interview said 14 of the teenage prostitutes who were detained during the raid in December, three of whom after medical checks were found to be pregnant with four others already with babies, have been rehabilitated and reintegrated into vocational training centres in their various communities.