Abisimbolma
is 2 and half years old; yet he looks like a six months old.
Looking very emaciated, his hands are very weak, his buttocks wrinkled
and laced with deep lines left by his shrinking body mass.
Born into a home torn apart by abject poverty and illiteracy,
Abisimbolma looks the exact replica of severely starved children
portrayed in the media of famine or war-torn countries.
This is how a number of children look like in this part of the Upper
East region where abject poverty, hunger and malnutrition has led some
mothers to bury their children alive, dump them by the way side or
sometimes leave them in a so called ‘evil forest’ to die.
The plight of these innocent children has been compounded by illiteracy
and outmoded traditional beliefs which has led to some poor families
secretly killing their malnourished children in some parts of northern
Ghana.
Nutrition Health Officer at the Bolgatanga Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre, Georgina Akolba told
The Weekend Globe
“Well, this child’s case is only one of many examples of what happens
here. In this part of the country many families don’t believe
that when kids look frail, weak and stunted, it’s more likely to be
clear case of malnutrition.
“They sometimes give the children concoctions with the help of
spiritualists and then throw them away in the forest. Even
more strange is the fact that they bury the children alive.
And this would have been the fate of this young boy if we had not
intervened. So you can just imagine the numbers of children
who are killed because they are malnourished.”
The result is that here in Bolga, gravediggers are in greater supply of
dead bodies than doctors due to the frequent demise of children as a
result of hunger.
Such shocking images were normally associated to war-torn, poverty
stricken countries but little did we know that it is closer home right
here in Ghana. The rising level of malnutrition in the three
northern regions of the country is adversely impeding the natural growth
of children. According to statistics, malnutrition is rife
in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions. Official
figures indicate two out of every three children in these three regions
are malnourished.
Ghana’s performance according to government statistics, in eradicating
poverty has been quite laudable at the national level and in urban
areas. But in the Upper East Region, poverty is still a major
threat to thousands of families. The June 2012 report of the
National Development Planning Commission compares poverty levels in
both the Northern and Upper East Regions and it was clear that though
the Northern Region managed to reduce poverty incidence from 63% in 1991
to 52% in 2006, the Upper East Region recorded an increase in poverty
levels from 67% to 70% over the same period.
The increasing level of poverty in the region means many families are
going to bed with little or no food by nightfall. Several of
such shocking stories had come to the attention of
The Weekend Globe, so in partnership with
UNICEF Ghana,
we decided to visit some parts of northern Ghana where these stories
were emanating. In a typical house in rural Bolga just like
that of Abisimbolma, a number of skinny looking children hang loosely in
a piece of cloth strapped behind their mother’s backs.
The plight of poorly-fed children like Abisimbolma has forced health
authorities in the Upper East Region to invest in a fairly modern health
post, equipped with resources to rehabilitate the malnourished kids of
Bolga and surrounding towns and villages. Named the
Bolgatanga Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre, health officials here put
malnourished children on a food supplement known as plumpy nuts until
they regain good health.
Former head of the Ghana Health Service, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa in
his view said it was quite serious the rate at which malnutrition
affects children especially in the formative years.
“Any child that suffers nutritional deficit beyond three years is
irreversible. In terms of mental development, they are
adversely affected. These are children who go to school and
under perform. And you ask yourself why, forgetting that they
are lethargic because they are unable to perform. So we are
taking out of Ghana’s Development Agenda, a considerable proportion of
the future generation and things must change,” he said.
In the three regions up north, traditional practices such as women and
children not being allowed to eat meat affect pregnant women who end up
having malnourished children. Georgina Akolba said “the
poverty and the high level of ignorance are stifling the efforts of
health workers here. We are forced to deal with interference
from family members and their outmoded superstitious beliefs.
Penetration from religious heads such as pastors is also affecting our
work.”
Since its inception in 1976 the center receives about twenty
malnourished children a week. At Abisimbolma’s residence, the
young mother carries her little her son on her shoulders.
While patting his son at the back to prevent him from crying Azinribise
explained why she believes her son is not a normal human being.
She said “when I gave birth to him he was not sick. But all
of a sudden he took ill. I sought pastoral help to protect
the child and the talisman you see is to prevent him from becoming weak.
I am a woman of Frafara origin. We believe that
children should be protected at this stage. When my child
sees the undertakers, the people who take care of dead bodies, the baby
becomes weak. That’s why you see all these things.
A day after meeting the family of Abisimbolma, I headed towards the town
center of Bolgatanga in search of more observations that give evidence
to malnutrition in the city.
About 100 meters from the Bolgatanga Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre,
lives the Asakisina family, one of the fairly well to do residents of
the Upper East regional capital. The woman of the house, Asa
met me with smiles at the entrance of their residence, carrying one and
half year old Maxwell a young boy who doctors had recently diagnosed as
malnourished and underweight.
The one and a half year old boy looks stunted, a primary manifestation
of malnutrition in early childhood. His buttocks sags and his
ribs form fine lines on his withered skin. Unlike
Abisimbolma, Maxwell is able to take some steps, aided by his mother.
Just like Abisimbolma’smother, Asa also believes that
malnourished kids are evil beings. Yet, she believes turning
to a pastor holds the key to exorcising her malnourished son, rather
than engage the services of gravediggers to bury him alive.
She told
The Weekend Globe “Whatever the
problem is, I believe it is spiritual and nothing seems to be working
so I turned to the pastor to help out and deal with it spiritually.”
But, beyond the search for pastoral solutions, Asa has also been seeking
the help of traditionalists to cure what clearly is a simple issue of
malnutrition. The young boy wears a number of talismans
around his wrist, waist and neck. So why seek both pastoral
and traditional solutions at the same time?
John Akparibo Ndebugri, an Accra based legal practitioner and former
Member of Parliament for Zebilla in the Upper East Region, said the
practice of killing malnourished children is a serious crime that
undermines the constitutional provisions that protect the right to life.
So how have health workers here been able to help families break away
from the shackles of these entrenched cultural beliefs? I put
this question to nutritionist Georgina Akolaba and she indicated that
“we involve the families in this issue so that they can all accept what
we are advocating because without that we can’t get anywhere.
That is the only way forward for us to stop the killing of the
malnourished kids and also make the needed progress.”
Georgina Akolba adds that although the center’s interventions have
helped save many malnourished children from the graves, enormous
challenges still linger in very critical areas.
The high number of malnourished children in the three regions up north
means that their mothers end up spending weeks in the rehabilitation
centers a situation that affects the farming season because the women
are not able to perform their traditional farming roles such as sowing
crops ––– millet, corn, groundnuts etc.
Whilst Health officials insist that Ghana is looking into reducing
malnutrition in children, the reality is that many children across the
country are still malnourished.
Experts say malnutrition is the underlying cause of death of 2.3 million
children per year. An average of one death every 15 seconds
worldwide is because of malnutrition. According to
statistics, there are currently 165 million children globally who are
chronically malnourished. A new report by Save the Children,
says this preventable condition has affected one in every four children
globally at some point in their lives. The report also
highlights the extraordinary impact that malnutrition has upon a child’s
cognitive development.
Source [citifmonline.com/Ghana]
