COMMENTARY ON CURBING THE MENACE OF WIFE KILLING

Horrifying and difficult to believe media stories of husbands impudently taking the lives of their hitherto better halves are not new in Ghana, but for the past one and a half weeks, it is clear that the menace is on the ascendency and in various dimensions and therefore calls for immediate steps to curb it. Can the perpetrators of this heinous crime be described as the most intimate persons in the life of the murdered wives and supposedly their better halves? Even though Mothers Day has come and gone we will continue to celebrate motherhood daily since mothers know no leave and have never been on leave because children and husbands are always and will always be around needing one service or the other. That explains why it is significant to pay attention to uxoricide, described as the lethal victimisation of women by their husbands. It is also referred to as spouse homicide, a global phenomenon but not widespread in Ghana until very recent times. According to sociological sources, the number of women murdered by their husbands is five times higher than the number of men murdered by their wives. Another aspect of the phenomenon are cases of multi-victim murder of spouse and child or children, as happened at Sepe Timpon in Kumasi, where Ama Foriwaa and her three children met their untimely deaths.

A study attributed to Mensah Adinkrah, a Sociologist gave reasons for uxoricidal killings in Ghana. They include husband's suspicion of infidelity in the past or at the time of the homicide, the wife's threat to divorce her husband and wives challenging their husband's authority in the conjugal relationship. The rest are wives refusal to submit to demands for intimacy and a wife questioning her husband's fidelity. In all these there is no justification for husbands to lethally assault their wives. Why should husbands arrogate to themselves the right to question their partner’s suspicion of infidelity and not vice versa? Why should husbands think wives have no right to seek divorce to protect herself and her children? Again why should husbands think that their wives in that complimentary relationship have no right to question their authority when it is becoming unbecoming? And why should a husband think that his father in-law’s daughter has no right to say no to his sexual demands under duress and broken heartedness? The time has come for intensification on the crusade to fight the increasing menace of domestic violence resulting in senseless loss of lives. Any threat on women by men or women on their husbands should not be downplayed by the police. The Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit of the Ghana Police Service, has so far lived up to expectation but government and private corporate bodies should endeavour to commit more resources to the protection of our homes where women and children are always around to keep them alive.

The time has come for the training of more mental health professionals, clinical psychologists and guidance and counseling coordinators to be employed at all work places and educational institutions to provide the need services. In all these, religious organisations, opinion and traditional leaders as well as corporate organisations must join the crusade to fight for and protect women, our mothers and indeed our innocent and vulnerable children from blood thirsty husbands.

BY: DAN OSMAN MWIN, HEAD OF PUBLIC RELATIONS OF THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH.