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As reports of abandoned children become dominate the news on a daily basis, some experts have said that there was a link between poverty, prostitution and child abandonment which they described as a form of child abuse. They also advocated severe punishment for women who commit such crime.
Oluyemise Alatise, initiator of Children’s Transit Centre for Lost but Found Children, Idi-Araba, Lagos, condemned child abandonment, saying it was as an act of wickedness by heartless mothers.
Alatise, who spoke with BDSUNDAY said that no-right thinking woman should abandon her baby after carrying her for nine months.
The Crusader, who also is the president of Inner Wheel Club of Lagos, wondered why a woman will abandon her baby after suffering for a period of nine months.
“Child abandonment is common in the Eastern part of the country where parents strongly oppose pregnancy out of wedlock. I am aware that there is no place in Nigeria where a young girl will get pregnant without being married and the parents will welcome it, but parents in the Eastern part of the country hate such behaviour with passion and are ready to kill such girl with her unwanted pregnant,” she said.
She noted that “As a result of the fear of what the parents and the siblings could do to her, the moment a girl gets pregnant she will run away from the family to an unknown place and as soon as she delivers the baby she will either sell the new born baby or abandon such baby in the hospital and run away.”
However, she stressed the need for parents to strictly monitor the activities of their female children so that they will not get involved in immoral activities that will result in unwanted pregnancy.
“Parents, especially mothers should properly train their female children; they should teach them sex education as early as possible so that they will not learn it from bad friends who will encourage them to practise sex before marriage,” she advised.
Blessing Eke, a gender activist, attributed the high rate of child abandonment in the society to male child preference, adding that female babies face more abandonment than male children.
“Some parents deliberately abandon their new born female children in the hospital because they are looking for a male child. It shouldn’t be so because today, female children are the ones taking care of their parents, once a young man gets married, his attention focuses on the immediate family, then why will parents abandon a child that will grow up to take care of them, just because is a female? It is high time parents began to appreciate their female children by accepting them as special gifts from God. Parents should also give quality education to their female children as well,” Eke said.
Solomon Tolani, education secretary, Ajeromi-Ifeolodun Local Government Area, Lagos State, who also spoke on the issue, described poverty as one of the major causes of child abandonment.
According to him, many parents who abandon their babies do so due to poverty, adding that “The economic situation in the country has made it impossible for parents to take adequate care of the number of children they gave birth to.
“Women already with larger family size before having multiple births may abandon their babies and run away from the hospital because such women are not economically strong to take care of the babies. Also, women who are being threatened by their husbands for having a particular sex may run away from the hospital after giving birth,” she said.
A Lagos-based social worker, Olufeyinde Adenike, stressed the need for family planning which, according to her will enable couples to have the number of children they can take care of.
Adenike also counseled young women against going into extra-marital relationship or prostitution, adding that most of the abandoned babies were product of immoral affairs.
Ngozi Okpalakunne
