|
Many reasons lie behind baby dumping
2006-04-12 07:37:33
By Joyce Mkinga
The technology to identify a person who impregnated a woman could be a rescue to many children who are being dumped by their mothers due to different problems. Our staff writer Joyce Mkinga gives insight of the problem of child dumping.
The saying that all human beings are mentally disturbed at different rates can clearly explain why some women decide to dump their children.
There are many problems that could make one get confused and decide to do things that cannot be done by a normal human being.
Social problems are said to have been a major contributing factor to the child abandonment and abortion. According to the available data from the Ministry of Health over 100,000 abortions are performed annually in Tanzania.
The statistics shows that many of these abortions occur in urban centres and school children form big percent of the culprits hence contributing significantly to the high maternal morbidity and mortality rate.
Psychologists say that women who has been abandoned by her boyfriend or family member are definitely affected psychologically and therefore could take a decision that could have adversely effect not only to herself but also to the people around her.
While some women decide to abandon their children some decide to kill the whole family. Some think twice that killing is a crime and a biggest sin before God hence decide to dump the child so that some Good Samaritans could take care of them.
Actually some are cleaver enough that they dump their children outside the children’s care centres.
According to the Medical and Social Welfare Department of the Muhimbili National Hospital on average between four and seven children are collected per month from different points.
The Department Social Welfare Officer Theresia Yono says that the children are collected from different points including on the roadside, churches, mosque, wells, offices, garbage and toilets. Unfortunately those who are dumped in the toilets do not survive.
Having confused with social problems and after a man refused to accept the child one woman in Dar es Salaam decided to go to the social welfare department to present her issue and the problems she was facing.
The woman was not only psychologically tortured but also had economic hardship that could not support her life and little baby.
When she explained the welfare officer in the Kinondoni offices before she could not get proper answer to her problem she left the baby in the office and went away.
She could not come back to date. The Social Welfare was on her way to the meeting she had to cancel the meeting to attend to this baby whose mother had abandoned him.
This one was clever enough not to dump the kid in the toilet or garbage collection point. Many of those dumped in such places do not survive.
According to Yono, a kid brought at the Muhimbili Medical Social Welfare department is checked of her/his health. The child is put under doctor’s observation for a week or more days depending on a particular case.
However, she says the kid cannot be accepted at the centre without a police letter since it is already a police case. Sometime it is was the police themselves who bring the children at the department.
While in the process of getting the mother of the kid, Medical Social Welfare department look for temporary resident of the kid.
The baby is taken to the children care centres that included Msimbazi children’s homes and Mother Theresa Mburahati who admit children between one day and two years.
If the mother is found is given the kid while legal measure are taken against them but police hardly come back after having left the kid at the department hence the kid permanently remain at the centre.
’’There are few cases in which police report back with the mother of the children and they given back their children,’’ she says.
The dumped children are still very young hence need parental love that’s why when the mother is found is given back her kid.
In spite of being given the kid, it must be proven that the mother is physically fit because if is mentally disturbed could harm the kid.
’’What pit us most are those dumped in the toilet because they never survive,’’ she says.
According to the research done and experience of those found after being abandoned children most of them are young ladies most of whom given birth when still in schools.
Unwanted pregnancies has been one of the major causes of child dumping, as most of these young ladies are not prepared to take care of the children.
This is mainly attributed to changes that take place with the body and lack of life skills among the youth.
’’These youth need to be educated on what to do during these body changes otherwise the problem would continue eating our society,’’ she says.
Men irresponsibility also contributes to the women’s decision to abandon children. If the lady fails to abort then she abandons the kids due to economic hardship, as most of the time even parents can not help the situation.
The modern technology to identify a person who impregnated a woman could be a rescue to many children who are been dumped by their mothers due to different problems including economic constraints.
The technology would help mothers who are abandoned by men who make them pregnant but when they are told of the outcome of their relations they jump 100 feets.
The Minister for Community Development, Gender and Children Sofia Simba told the parliament recently that the modern screening technology would help to nab men who run away from women they make pregnant and deny an involvement.
According to the technology the blood of the two and the kid are examined to know the relationship.
The Minister admitted that the problem of children abandonment was becoming more serious on the daily basis.
The statistic available at the Social Welfare Department shows that in 2005 a total of 350 children were forsake in different parts of the country.
The urban centres are said to have contributed large number of the discarded children with Dar es Salaam having 45 percent of the number of the children dumped.
There are might be bigger number of children compared to the reported statistics because some of the cases went unreported.
Simba says it was complex to learn about such offences due to the nature of the secrecy involved.
The kind of punishment given to the culprit also differed varied in strength depending on the nature and the circumstances in which the crime was committed.
’’Some mother abandon their children out of sickness such as mental, confusion, epilepsy acquired during pregnancy and other reasons,’’ she says.
Some of the other factors leading to the children abandonment included early pregnancies, rejection by male partners claimed to have fathered the children, scolding by parents, poverty, and broken marriages.
The real meaning of a family means a father, mother and children and therefore each one must be responsible of what is doing.
Now that the technology to identify the father of the abandoned children is coming the government should clearly state the punishment one would get having found to be denying his own blood.
If children who are the nation of tomorrow would be dumped in that manner there the problem is ahead of us.
Please leave these children alone they have a right to life. You have brought them in world take care of them. Be responsible!
|
