A 25-year-old woman has appeared before a circuit court in the Western Region accused of taking an eight-month-old baby and arranging for him to be circumcised.
Helena Aba Kwansah Abakah, who is unemployed and also uses the name Dijah Ali, denied a charge of child stealing when she stood before the Tarkwa Circuit Court on 2 March 2026. The court, presided over by Her Honour Bernice Mensimah Ackon, adjourned the case to 28 April.
Prosecutors say the incident began on 24 December 2025, when the accused allegedly took the baby boy, Musah Joll, from his mother in Bogoso.
The child’s mother, 27-year-old Halima Joll, told police that circumcision goes against the cultural practices of her Fulani community.
The court heard that Ms Joll, a hairdresser, lives in Bogoso with her husband and their son. According to the prosecution, she first met the accused on 20 December while travelling on a commercial vehicle from Kumasi to Bogoso. They exchanged phone numbers and remained in contact after the journey.
Assistant Superintendent of Police Samuel Ahiabor told the court that on 24 December, the accused asked Ms Joll to braid her hair. The two went to St James Anglican Church at Ateikuem in Bogoso, where the work took place.
During the braiding, the accused is said to have played with the baby and later took him, offering to help so the mother could work more easily.
Prosecutors say the accused later took Ms Joll to another location, claiming she could find more customers there. It was at that point, the court heard, that she allegedly disappeared with the child.
The prosecution said Ms Joll, who speaks Fulfulde, struggled to raise an alarm. She returned home and informed her husband, and the couple reported the case to the Bogoso Police Station, providing the suspect’s phone number.
Police investigations led to the arrest of the accused on 14 January 2026 in Prestea, after officers from the Cyber Crime Unit tracked the phone number. The baby was found with her and rescued.
When Ms Joll was reunited with her son, she told police she realised he had been circumcised. A medical report from the Bogoso Government Hospital presented in court indicated that the child’s blood level had dropped.
Further investigations, the prosecution said, suggested the accused had married a man in April 2025 and told him she was pregnant before the marriage. She later claimed to have given birth in Kumasi in October but said the baby was in an incubator and did not present the child to him.
Prosecutors allege that after taking the child in December, the accused presented him to her husband as their own.
