Teaching Significant and Sensitive Issues in the 21st Century-Teaching of Sexual Offenses in the Law Faculty-A Ghanaian Perspective

• 作者: Kujo E.McDave
• 来源期刊: 美中法律评论:英文版
• 学科: 文学
• 关键词: education LAW legal PROFESSION sexual offenses SENSITIVE ISSUES SIGNIFICANT courses TEACHING strategy and techniques justice training LAW students
• 年，卷（期）: 2019,（7）
• 页码范围: 265-270
• 页数: 6页
• 分类号: H31

摘要

The Faculty of Law,among others,has the primary purpose of teaching and training law students to be lawyers and advocates of the voiceless.However,recent developments have made teaching of some significant yet sensitive topics,such as abortion rape,defilement,and other sexual offenses very difficult.Some students find the teaching of such topics at the Law Faculty unpleasant.Those affected by the teaching of such topics may either be survivor of a sexual offence or students who for socio-cultural beliefs and principles may also find such topics unpleasant.This has really influenced the teaching of sensitive issues at the various Law Faculties across the globe with Ghana not being an exception.This paper focuses on the conflict between the decisions of the Supreme Court of Ghana where the Court established that for the purpose of justice,words used in sexual offenses must be brutally frank,whiles the social cultural influence position of these topics argues for the use of euphemisms since it is a taboo and considered immoral to identify sexual organs by their names.The paper endeavors to explain why the teaching of these sensitive topics in the 21st century is quite a challenge.In Ghana,these topics form part of the content of Criminal Law,a mandatory course needed for pursuing professional legal studies.For this reason,it is not a question of whether or not it should be taught in the Law Faculty but how it should be taught.The paper proposes values and means that can be essential,and when applied to the teaching of rape and sexual offenses,it will mitigate and address the unpleasant nature of the topics and rather encourage the students to participate in the teaching and discussion of these topics.It concludes by outlining the need for student lawyers having the knowledge in these topics and its impact on society.