Requests by men for paternity testing in Ghana, America, UK and all countries alike on the planet have been increasing in recent years, with suspicious husbands doubting whether their wives have been faithful, according to a recent survey undertaken by a British newspaper. DNA Testing has now become a household name that, some nations are considering a law called PATERNITY FRAUD. This will be applied in a case where a man looks after a child that the woman knows, is not the biological father of the child.
Who is affected by paternity fraud?
The victim, victim’s family and the child. The victim’s are convicted for believing “I’m pregnant and you’re the father”, while the mother willfully and knowingly conceals material facts. After all no mother would ever lie about who’s the father of her child, right? Surely nobody would do this to our Military men, our busy managers, and our brothers and sons either? A man can fight for his country, return home and find out that none of the kids are his – the pain is “daddy” through rain or shine, has to provide money, for the “Childrens” upkeep. You live to look or raise another guy’s baby. The children are victims of paternity fraud by loss of their bio-dad, paternal family, financial benefits and genetic heritage. Its different if you know the baby is adopted but to be made to believe you have a child and later discover you are not is a trauma to go through in life.
My colleagues have argued over this case where they are concluding that courts should make women pay to men in cases of paternity fraud. Well it’s a good debate hahah!!
Is it fare and how can it hold in Ghana?
IMAGINE RAISING A family for years,paying child support and all the other expenses that come with it especially abroad,only to find out one day that your children are not really yours.Is this a nightmare, or an unfortunate necessity to protect the children's interests?No one knows exactly how many men--and children--around GHANA and the world are confronting this question in their own lives, but the individual cases that have made it into the spotlight are wrenchin and horrific.
One such story, told recently on a ghanaian radio station abroad was about a ghanaian man and his Jamaican ex wife. The man,a busy bus driver and the woman a beautician who have a 6 year old son and a 4 yearold son. Ofori’s fateful discovery, several years after he divorced from his jamaican wife,was prompted by a call from the hospital one winter morning. Ofori was called in to donate blood to his 4 year old who needed blood urgently since he was thalassaemic (an inherited characteristic of the blood which reduces the amount of haemoglobin in a human body, leading to anaemia).According to Ofori the news came as a shock since the child was a normal child with no signs of the disease showing. The desire to help treat his 4-year-old son became his topmost priority, that he sacrificed everthing and went to the hospital for the blood transfusion. When they took a blood test to do a sample match before the transfusion, , it turned out that his genotypes and his sons were a mix-match.ofori recalls his experience in the hospitals that week as doctors kept asking him if he truly is the father of the child. Asem beba dabi. Im sorry Mr ofori but genetically there is no way you are related to “your son”,we have to find another donor to save “your son’s” life.My head kept spinning, I have been paying child support for years and only God knows how much till now,said Mr ofori on the station. And the worst of it the huge Alimony during the divorce…oh God
Subsequent genetic tests showed that of the two children born to this woman ,none was Mr Ofori’s. this debate generated so much heat on the radio stations that callers,men and women, started attacking each other. "I never experienced a heart attack, and I can tell you, I had one that day;' ofori said. My mum had warned me to be careful,and I had fought with mum over this woman and are not even on good terms with her,will mum forgive me …I Reminisced
What mother said years back:"I mean...a part of me died." Is this my fate , a curse or should I have listened to my mother. I was in shock," ofori said. "This is the kind of thing that happened on Jerry Springer, I couldn't believe it was happening to me." "I felt anger towards my ex wife and sadness, and I felt so sorry for “the kids," Mr. ofori recalled. "I told my boys, 'I love you all, you'll always be my sons, the only difference is now I'm not your biological father.
Paternity tests, a favourite theme of daytime talk shows, have become more common as they become easier to administer and less expensive. The cost of the test is at least half of what it was 10 years ago, and the popularity of home DNA tests is on the rise. The consequences have had enormous emotional, legal and financial consequences for the men, women and children involved. For ofori it has cost him his relationship with his children. But the question is should he be blamed for his ex wife’s infidelity. Not only are you talking about infidelity, but also it's a lie that my ex wife carried forward for years and placed on the children. I had loved and trusted this person to the extent of falling out with my family.
That guy you call your dad may not be. DNA testing has revolutionized medical science; it has uncovered the myths buried by “mums” but whether for the good or bad it has come to stay. Said Dr amponsah
They came to the hospital together, a husband, a wife and the little daughter they feared had been cursed by inheritance. Since birth, she had struggled to be strong and live, and all the signs pointed to Sickle cell. If the girl truly had the incurable disease that clogs the blood, she had to have received two copies of the SS gene, one from each parent. Tests at the Hospital for Sick Children in UK confirmed the family's worst fears -- and then some.
The girl was indeed afflicted. Her mom carried one of the culprit genes. But her dad, (A Ghanaian, Otoo) the doctors discovered, was quite a different story. His DNA showed no sign of a sickle gene, which means he is not a carrier and he is not her dad.
Hospital staffs have felt bound to keep the secret from him. But when they told the mom, it came as no surprise; it rarely does. "It is probably true in a lot of families, that daddy is not who you think it is," says Dr Amponsah, a senior scientist in department of genetics at a Hospital for Sick Children. But the question is how do you break the news. Are you breaking the marriage or splitting the family bond. But in one-way or the other the story needs to be told.
Geneticists have stumbled upon this phenomenon in the course of conducting large population studies and hunting for genes that cause diseases such as cystic fibrosis. They find full siblings to be half-siblings, fathers who are genetic strangers to more than one of their children and uncles who are much closer to their nieces and nephews than anyone might guess. Lumped under the heading of "pedigree errors," these so-called mix-paternities, false paternities and non-paternities are all science jargon for the unwitting number of us who are chips off someone else's block.
The widespread use of DNA analysis has presented science and society with all sorts of new ethical problems, and now it's pulling this naked truth out of the closet and into the courtroom. Men who call themselves "Duped Dads" are looking for legal redress to protect them against paternity fraud, raising questions about the definition of fatherhood. Several U.S. states are considering legislation that could exempt non-biological fathers from having to pay child support and even have the ones paid retrieved.
After ofori’s incident, I took the time to research on how many of these cases go on in Ghana, UK and United States, the only places I could do the survey and I was astonished to hear some stories. Even the most learned among us are grappling with the implications. Last year, the 30-per-cent non-paternity rate cited by some embassies in Ghana was just for the figures and statistics and I am sure there is more to be unveiled.
The notion of a woman carrying the child of someone other than her partner is older than the Christmas story itself. No geneticist believes non-paternity to be purely the product of modern immorality; they have been tripping over the infidelities of earlier generations for decades.
A director of genetic counselling, I had a chat with, at the Hospital for Sick Children, said that 15 years ago, when genetic tests were less powerful, researchers had to draw blood from a child, his or her parents and both sets of grandparents. In the interests of maintaining family peace, the tests would be dismissed as "uninformative."
Over the years, the hospital has relied on the advice of lawyers and ethicists to develop policies for handling the situation. For example, its consent form now warns what a genetic test can reveal. Parents "will sometimes giggle in the waiting room when they read the paragraph about non-paternity. But then we get the phone call later, forewarning us as to what we might find.
When a test disqualifies a father, "most women do express some surprise, but then there is a resignation, or an acceptance that they were kind of half anticipating this was going to happen. But then all this is followed very quickly by panic and questions as to whether or not we will betray their confidentiality."
In one family with four daughters, the DNA analysis was so surprising that counsellors asked the mother to explain. "It turned out that the daughters had three different fathers. "We cannot make any conclusions based on the family structures as they are presented to us."
Recently a questionnaire in Britain found that most women tended to be unfaithful to their long-term partners around the time they were most fertile. A data I read suggested, a woman may be more likely to conceive with a fresh partner because a woman can essentially develop antibodies against her regular partner's sperm, so that she may be more likely to be impregnated by fresh sperm."
Between 30 and 50 per cent of women cheat on their partners, compared with 50 to 80 per cent of men, "This jibes with the idea that as many as 10 per cent of these relations may result in pregnancy," she said, explaining that women may cheat as an escape from a bad marriage, for revenge on a cheating partner, to find a better provider, or just for fun. But for whatever the reason may be, should someone’s uncle, brother or son be the scapegoat of a paternity fraud.
My sister, Michelle, however, said the moral transgression of infidelity couldn’t compare with the deception of lying about paternity. She thinks paternity fraud should be considered a crime of the highest order. There are certainly those -- the "Duped Dads" among them -- who would agree with her.
"Reproductive deception is morally similar to rape," Dr. amponsah, said. "If you trick someone into raising a baby not his own, and he puts 20 years of his life into an endeavour based on a falsehood, that is appalling and should be classified as a form of perjury. If you were a judge would you make every female pay for all monies men spend on raising kids they know are not theirs? Will this in some form DETER women from immoral acts like these?
Most men around the world are setting up support groups and beginning to lobby to change what they see as barbaric and irresponsible acts “PATERNITY FRAUD” by some women, which later harm the children. Some countries have bills pending that would take paternity fraud into account and at least three others have already passed similar legislation.
According to the embassies in Ghana, 30 percent of 354,000 men who took paternity tests in 2003-2006 were not the biological fathers of the tested child. In Ghana, a survey recently conducted has left little to be desired from our wives. My bosom friend is a victim of paternity fraud and is still at war with his mum for his lost identity.
Some advanced states are warring against lost identities on behalf of children and preventing paternity fraud by offering DNA tests at birth. DNA testing offered at all births. A couple could elect to not do the test, but would forgo the ability to challenge biological evidence in the future Would Ghana wake up to this one day? Hmmmmmm
MSc student in Microbiology, University of Liverpool
Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.