Women Who Cheat On Their Husbands Should Be Stoned

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Daboya/Mankarigu in the Northern Region has recommended that women who cheat on their spouses should be stoned or hanged.

This, he said will serve as a deterrent as well as force women to be faithful to their husbands.

The MP, Nelson Abudu Baani made these suggestions during deliberations on the Interstate Succession bill in Parliament on Thursday.

“Countries like Afghanistan, if you go behind your husband, they hang you or they stone you to death so if we add that, we will have genuine women in marriages,” he argued.

The bill which was introduced in 2009 has now reached its second stage of consideration.

The Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee which has been mandated to work on the bill has justified the reason for the delay in its passage.

According to the Committee, over two years has been spent analyzing the bill due to the very sensitive issues of inheritance in Ghana it addresses.

The bill is expected to replace the Intestate Succession Act, 1985 (PNDC Law 111) when passed.

The PNDC Law 111 stipulates that the distribution of the estate of a man who died without a will is determined by the customary law of inheritance of the area from which he hailed, or the type of marriage under which the deceased married.

This means a huge portion of the deceased properties is inherited by his customary successor or successors on behalf of the extended family, thereby cheating the female spouse and children of the deceased.

The current bill is aimed at rectifying the situation by giving more rights to women with regards to property of their deceased husbands.

But in his contribution to the debate on the floor of Parliament on Thursday, the Daboya/Mankarigu Legislator disclosed that the bill if passed in its current form will not favour him.

He said: “The punishment which is accompanying the clause will not favour men especially me; it will not favour me.”

According to him, some wives are “Alomo Gyatas” [troublesome and wicked] in their homes so if maybe, a woman that I am married to brings me a bastard, what is the offence for those types of women?”

“What type of punishment do you give to them? That is why I would like to say that unless this clause is added; punishment for women who are not faithful, we should not adopt this bill,” he added.

He thus appealed to his colleague MPs to be object while deliberating on the bill saying, “I want members at this time to be objective…this bill will bring a lot of controversy in my area especially for me.”

Abudu Baani further suggested that MPs should suspend deliberations on the Interstate Succession bill “and do a lot of consultation. We should go to the various villages and ask the people if they are okay with before we come back to pass the bill into law.”