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Child dumping dreadful, tragic
2007-09-11 08:50:43
By Editor
Few practices or trends have caused a bigger outcry transcending territorial boundaries than has female genital mutilation, with NGOs joining the bandwagon in droves by soliciting and utilising all manner of resources to combat the practice.
Donors have readily, sometimes sort of extravagantly, funded projects bent on reining in FGM. Rather, surprisingly, what is arguably a much worse problem has seldom received as much attention.
We have in mind child dumping, which often leads to the human deaths - an eventuality with a much bigger impact than what was for ages known as female circumcision.
Most research on orphanages is likely to show a huge majority of the children cared for at those centres are but a hapless creation of dumping.
There is no doubt that child dumping is a crime. Surely, it would be hard for one to imagine that it is the sort of action that would lead to safe landing.
Indeed, few of those children that survive the crime grow up a safe distance from the trauma resulting from the ordeal.
This is to say that dumping is a gamble of the worst kind because the victim’s chance of survival is normally 50-50.
History has cases girls and women dumping their own babies in toilets or other places from where safe recovery of the victims is well-nigh impossible. Need we also mention illegal abortions?
Unfortunately, despite all the cases of dumped children there have been, rarely does one see or hear of the real culprits being made to account appropriately for their criminal deeds.
The closest we often come to making attempts to solve the problem is picking on the poor woman or girl directly behind the abortion, delivery or dumping.
One wonders whether it would not be preferable to delve into the real reasons that make child dumping so rampant or fashionable.
Seriously speaking, there must be a valid explanation for the stubbornness of the cancer if we are to land a lasting solution.
It would pay to involve those who have often been at the receiving end - the women and girls who have been bearing the brunt of the blame, that is.
If that were to be done, there is no reason for society failing to stem the ugly and destructive tide.
Some will continue to blame those men fond of denying responsibility for the devastating consequences of their actions.
They will say failure to provide adequate care makes some women or girls dump their babies out of desperation, particularly when parents swear to kill them in case they fall pregnant.
But none of this qualifies as enough reason for the dumping of one`s child. Perhaps experts such as psychologists could help unravel the mystery and controversy surrounding the matter.
Since it always takes two to tango, all of us should join the crusade by involving both parties to the problem in seeking an agreeable way out.
Child dumping is immoral - and we already have more than our share appropriately of orphanages and street children.
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