We supervise orphanages, we go disguised – Gender Minister

Cynthia Mamle Morrison, the Minister responsible for the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MWCA) or Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MGCSP), has said that her outfit has been checking the orphanages by visiting them and going there under disguise. This was said in an interview with Tiger Eye PI in her office.

In response to how the ministry would see to the success of a collaboration between her ministry and the orphanages and NGOs and also make them comply with rules and regulations governing the services they render, Morrison said that her outfit has been checking the orphanages by visiting them and going there under disguise.

She explained that when supervision by her ministry is intensified, a lot of the activities by the bad nuts in the NGO and the orphanages in our society could be uncovered and appropriately dealt with.

“Our responsibility is to supervise, since, anybody can decide to set up (an orphanage home), the government has but the private ones together even with the government, we supervise. We have our people who go round to see, sometimes, they go disguised, you’ll never know who that person is”, the minister explained.

She, however, quickly answered that bad heads who do not personally own the organizations they are in charge of would either be removed, suspended or have a supervisor from her ministry attached to them to see to the smooth running of their facilities depending on the gravity of the offences. “Yeah, bad practices, that is what I said, we’ll either take the (school), it depends on the quantum of crime. Or the quantum of this abuse that is going on there. If it is beyond us, we’ll take it from you. We’ll not let you handle children in a certain way. No, we’ll not. They are human beings”, she replied when asked of what will happen to bad heads.

The honorable minister, who took over from Hon Afisa Adjaba after the latter’s resignation from the position, intends to organize certificate orientation sessions for the CEOs and managers of orphanage homes and NGOs to help them effectively run their homes and NGOs without abuse and neglect and also to enable the ministry to properly deal with any of these CEOs and managers who flout on the rules and regulations governing the ministry and its operations.

“And then to the people who have homes themselves, should have the training and I think that the ministry will have to organize training sessions for those people because we can’t just leave them to do their own thing. Otherwise, after all it’s my home, I want to do (…), but once you are doing it as a home and you have registered with us, you have to comply by our rules. But we can’t also criticize them if we have not given them training. That is why sometimes I am mild at it because what training have I given them for me to for me to condemn them. So we are going to give them training sessions. They should tell us the reason why they are into this. As a group, everybody will tell us how and why he/she entered into the NGO. Why did you choose to take care of the elderly people? Why did you choose to take care of the physically challenged people? Why did you decide to take care of babies? And all that. They will tell us and we’ll talk about it. So, if you are doing babies, we bring those who are doing babies together, give them training on it and then they are good to go. Give them certificate to show that they have gone through this training. Once a while we’ll do the orientation, then gradually we’ll get there. And I believe that when we do that we’ll get a better system in this country. Even those who don’t even know and are doing things on the blind side, will know that, ‘Oh! I thought I was doing the right thing but now let me be on stream and do the right thing’”, she said

The Member of Parliament for the Agona West Constituency proposed that there should be a system where people who get pregnant but can’t cater for either the pregnancy or the baby after birth would have their pregnancies and babies taken care of to prevent unnecessary abortions, infant murdering and child neglect in our society. “That is why I said even if somebody is pregnant and she thinks that she can’t take care of the child, you come and tell us, we’ll help you through your pregnancy. Once you have the child and you don’t want the child, we’ll take care of the child for you. And even if you want your child later on, you’ll let us know that “I can’t, I don’t have money. I am young”. We’ll document it. When you are matured enough and you have a job to do and you want to raise your child, we can (…). That system should be there, that system should be there. So, that nobody kills a child at birth or nobody should have abortion because she thinks she cannot raise the child”, she proposed.