Within the last few days, we have heard and read reports about a businessman brutally assaulting her spouse, resulting in sickness and eventual death.
We have also read reports about other boys and men brutally assaulting girlfriends and spouses to pulp – and even death – alerting us to the new wave of domestic violence that we are living with.
The media yesterday also reported of a footballer, Anthony Dordoye, 27, allegedly murdering his long-time girlfriend, Harriet Kafui Ahiati, at Ho, in Volta Region.
Earlier, a report of a tragic incident involving a public official had been in the news. He was also alleged not only to have been regularly beating her girlfriend to pulp, but that he sealed that act of violence by ensuring that the girl did not live to play ‘jealousy.’
As the reports reveal, these were not accidental like the one-in-a-hundred reported cases of some ‘angry’ farmer in some ‘rural’ community luring a nagging wife to farm, and attacking her with a machete, which should also not be encouraged in any civilised society.
The recent trend involves men who are considered ‘responsible’, in the estimation of society and their spouses who have lost their lives.
Everyday occurrence
While these unfortunate events have been recorded because they had been reported, most Ghanaians know that such silly acts of ‘love’ violence are everyday occurrences.
At least, the assault or battery, particularly on the part of young men against their spouses and girlfriends, has become so rampant that we are compelled, sometimes, to ask ourselves if these girls have no families or relations.
From the streets of Agbogbloshie through Odododiodioo, down to Chorkor and Teshie, the sight and sounds of girls being beaten and dragged along streets and alleys are a common sight.
DOVVSU
As for cases that eventually show up at the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit of the Ghana Police Service, we know they do so because those involved are basically those aware of their rights.
Even here, the numbers going out and coming in are over cases that are apparently overwhelming the hardworking, over-tasked police officers.
Monitoring and managing the situation through counselling and prosecuting of delinquents have been tedious work, particularly when the men who tend to be the delinquents in the matter play hide and seek with the police officers over proposals that would moderate the situation and offer relief to the victim or the vulnerable party.
Parents, take charge
In the recent reported cases, we believe all the suspects in the matter have relatives who might be aware of the relationships and their degeneration. We should be surprised if they or friends didn’t know.
We should also be surprised if the girlfriends and spouses who have all exited life in such painful manner didn’t know the relationships were worsening and that a separation would be sensible thing to do.
As we would admit, all that depends on the kind of training a girl or boy has had; and that puts the blame squarely on parents who have not been responsible enough to themselves and so do not discern when they should intervene in the life of their growing kids.
Deterrence
Whatever the police come up with, there is the need for our agencies of law and order to begin getting tougher with these incidents involving domestic violence, which usually begin with village love scenes in which being beaten is a sign of love and an occupational hazard, until the worse happens.
It is our opinion that, while the police continue with its investigations, tightening of the screws on the delinquents should be maximal, in deterring future incidents.
The bench, the bar, the religious and traditional communities as well as the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection must wake up and bare their teeth at the perpetrators.
Girls or women and spouses are citizens with rights, and must be protected against these needless attacks.
Women, girls, spouses must also be sensible to know when ‘enough is enough’. Staying in a relationship that is going downhill doesn’t tell a good story about us to society or our friends, particularly if that relationship lands in the graveyard, instead of that ‘wonderland’ that both lovers anticipated.
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