Lets end killing and maiming of kids by moms

Alhaji Alhasan Abdulai

Women by their nature are more compassionate and sympathetic than men, being mothers and managers of our homes and communities. Being mothers they are responsible for the birth, feeding and upbringing of all generations from our childhood and as wives having to take care of men as well. However of late the weird behavior of some women seems to be creating doubts in the minds of many people about the known and time tested character of all women. Some women (though very few) have resorted to inflicting injuries on their own children while other have succeeded in killing their own children. Some women in recent past were caught and punished for burning the fingers of their children while others used pressing irons to burn the backs and buttocks of their children for allegedly stealing small amounts of cash or other valuables. Of all the brutalities recorded none was as bad as the action taken by a woman to render her own child blind using a sharp object to remove his eyeballs. This was reported by joy news on line from their reporter at Amasaman in Ga District of Accra Ghana . The five years old boy simply called Godsway said “My mother broke a plastic plate and pierced my eyes with it several times”

The 5-year old boy was pinned to the dust with adult force one Tuesday in Amasaman. He must have thought that as long as it was his mother and not a murderer, the worst he could get was a spanking.

His arms broken, his eyes swollen – and it oozed with a foul smell after five days in the hospital, five days later, Godsway’s eyes were surgically removed. With all this his mothers action seems forgiven following days of showing signs of mental instability.

Richmond Otchere the man in the house believes a spirit might have entered his wife because before the incident, she had shown no signs of violence towards anybody at home and she prayed a lot..

The victim’s father said his wife is still living in denial of the act. She has a jealous love for the son. She still thinks her son is fine. She believes the victim is rather another child from a different relationship the carpenter had with another woman. This shows clearly that she is mentally unstable and her husband is positioning himself to continue living with his killer wife out of love.

If what you just read about young Godsway who has been rendered blind by his mum is sad what you are about to read about another lady who killed her own children is disheartening indeed.

The story which is currently on the social media is that Ms Naana Bray, a 45-year-old former accountant with the National Commission on Culture, who killed her two young daughters, had been confirmed mentally retarded by a hospital report from the Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital to the Essikado Police Station.

The woman is believed to be suffering from schizophrenic disorders, a condition she suffered after the delivery of her second daughter, now deceased, a family source confirmed.

According to Mental Health Experts, Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects the way a person behaves, thinks, and sees the world.

People with this brain disorder often have an altered perception of reality.

A study by Cheryl L. Meyer an associate professor of psychology at Wright State University and author of "Mothers Who Kill Their Children: Understanding the Acts of Moms and others came out with the following findings ;

Clearly it is unusual for a woman to kill more than one child, especially five, but it has happened before. Ophelia Yip, a Chinese immigrant, drove the family van off a pier into the Los Angeles Harbor killing herself and her four children in 1991, but that case received little media attention.

In fact, according to the author “we found several thousand cases from 1990 to 1999 involving mothers who killed their children, and we researched over 200 of them. Approximately 10 percent of these women had killed more than one child. However, other than Susan Smith, who drowned her two small sons.

The one thing the women who made national news did have in common was that they seemed unlikely candidates to kill their children. They did not fit the stereotype of a woman who would kill her child. What is that unspoken stereotype? A woman who is "mad" or insane, a woman who is "bad" or evil, a woman who is economically underprivileged or a woman of color

From the above accounts it is clear that all those who who inflict injuries or kill their own children could not have been mentally fit to take care of children. But one thing that accounts for their actions is that the society does not believe a mother can take the lives of her own children. However the time has come for society to be up and doing by detecting the behavior of mentally unbalanced mothers who are likely to inflict harm on their own children or children who live with them. This way we would be able to prevent the death or maiming of innocent children in the hands of their own mothers. If we especially those close to them fail to act swiftly we may have ourselves to blame when women who themselves are unwell commit murder unknowingly. There is nothing we can do than to refer them to mental hospitals for treatment. With this advice we need to take a hard look at the behavior of all mothers, by sending specially trained staff of the Department of Social Welfare of the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection as they take care of children at home and in all communities.

Executive Director

EANFOWORLD FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

P.O.BOX 17070AN 233244370345/23327483710/ 233208844791

abdulai.alhasan@gmail.com /eanfoworld@yahoo.com