Freedom, Responsibility, and the Protective Role of the State

On 21 February 2026 edition of Newsfile, Inusah Fuseini, former member of Ghana’s Parliament, made a statement that deserves careful reflection: “The protective presence of the state must be visible and effective. Freedom does not mean absence of responsibility. The state exists to safeguard its citizens.” His comments, in reference to the alleged exploitation of Ghanaian women by a foreign national, touch on a principle that lies at the heart of every functioning democracy, the balance between liberty and protection.

Across the world, liberal democracies are built on the foundation of individual freedom. Citizens are free to make choices about their associations, work, beliefs, and personal lives, so long as those choices remain within the bounds of the law. Yet freedom has never meant abandonment. A society that interprets liberty as the total withdrawal of state responsibility risks descending into exploitation, inequality, and silent harm.

Political philosophy offers useful guidance here. In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argues for broad individual freedom but introduces what has become known as the “harm principle”: liberty may be exercised freely until it causes harm to others. Mill’s insight is often misread as an argument for minimal state presence. In reality, it establishes the state as a necessary arbiter when private decisions create public consequences.

Similarly, John Locke in his Two Treatises of Government maintained that government is instituted to preserve life, liberty, and property. Where protection fails, legitimacy weakens. Locke’s framework is not authoritarian; it is protective constitutionalism.

Even and again, the great liberal thinker John Stuart Mill in On Liberty (1859), often cited in defines of minimal state interference, did not advocate unrestrained autonomy. Mill’s harm principle explicitly allows intervention where actions cause harm to others. Modern scholarship has clarified that Mill did not support indifference to structural exploitation or coercive conditions disguised as “choice.”

Contemporary political theorists such as John Rawls further strengthened this understanding. In A Theory of Justice (1971), Rawls argued that social institutions must be arranged to protect the least advantaged. Justice is not neutrality between strong and weak; it is fairness in conditions of inequality.

Therefore, when adults appear to “choose” arrangements that expose them to exploitation, particularly in contexts shaped by economic vulnerability, information asymmetry, or power imbalance, the state cannot hide behind the rhetoric of consent.

More directly, social contract theorists such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke argued that individuals surrender certain freedoms precisely so that the state can protect life, liberty, and property. Without that protective structure, the vulnerable are left exposed to the powerful.

When “Choice” Masks Vulnerability

One of the most difficult modern questions is how to treat situations in which adults appear to “choose” arrangements that may ultimately exploit them. The language of choice can obscure the presence of coercion, economic desperation, misinformation, or psychological manipulation. A purely hands-off state risks legitimising exploitation under the banner of freedom.

This is especially true in cases involving cross-border actors, power imbalances, or digital platforms that amplify influence and persuasion. When individuals, particularly women, are drawn into arrangements that may compromise their safety, dignity, or long-term well-being, the state cannot simply say: “They chose it.” The existence of consent does not automatically eliminate the possibility of exploitation.

The protective presence of the state, therefore, is not paternalism for its own sake. It is recognition that freedom exists within social realities shaped by inequality, power dynamics, and structural pressures.

Social Constructs and the Deviation from Nature

Our modern world also grapples with social constructs that complicate traditional categories, including those of male and female. Biological sex has long been understood as rooted in nature. Yet contemporary societies increasingly recognise gender as a social and cultural construct, shaped by norms, expectations, and evolving understandings of identity.

Acknowledging social constructs does not eliminate biological realities. Rather, it demonstrates how societies interpret and assign meaning to natural differences. In this evolving space, the role of the state becomes even more critical: to ensure that emerging identities, shifting norms, and expanding freedoms do not become avenues for exploitation or harm.

When long-standing social frameworks change rapidly, regulatory gaps can emerge. Predators often exploit such gaps. A visible and effective state ensures that social evolution does not outpace legal safeguards.

Freedom Within a Moral Community
The idea that “freedom does not mean absence of responsibility” reflects a deeper truth: liberty is sustainable only within a moral community. Rights are meaningful only when matched with duties, duties to oneself, to others, and to society.

The state, therefore, is not an enemy of freedom but its guarantor. Laws against fraud, coercion, trafficking, abuse, and exploitation are not restrictions on liberty; they are protections that make liberty possible.

A society that abandons protective oversight in the name of autonomy risks creating a marketplace where the powerful thrive and the vulnerable are consumed. Conversely, a state that is visible, firm, and just sends a clear message: personal freedom is respected, but exploitation will not be tolerated.

The Path Forward
The debate raised by Inusah Fuseini is not merely about one incident. It is about the kind of society we seek to build. A mature democracy must hold two truths at once:

1. Adults are free to make lawful choices.
2. The state has a duty to intervene when those choices are shaped by manipulation, coercion, or systemic vulnerability that endanger the state existentially.

Protection is not oppression. Responsibility is not repression. And freedom, if it is to endure, must operate within a framework that safeguards human dignity.

The state’s protective presence must indeed be visible and effective, not to control citizens, but to ensure that liberty does not become a license for exploitation. If Ghana is to remain a constitutional democracy rooted in dignity, equality, and moral responsibility, then the protective presence of the state must indeed be visible, and effective.