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18.05.2012 Editorial

Crazy Murders Of Women, Kids

By Daily Guide
Murdered cutlassMurdered cutlass
18.05.2012 LISTEN

Something must be wrong with us as a society. We have heard many people wonder about the rising and unusual phenomenon of the murder of women and cruelty to children, and whether the trend is the result of a certain overwhelming pressure upon the perpetrators of the dreadful actions.

Be it as it may, the need for something to be done about the absurd developments cannot be over-emphasised.

The past few months have witnessed the murder of two children by their father, who later turned the lethal object on their mother and killed her . Another bloodcurdling incident saw a farmer take his wife to the farm and after tying her to a tree, he slit her throat; outright absurdity we dare state.

The statistics are disturbing, especially as there appears not to be no end in sight.

The man, who killed two of his kids, prompted many questions about his kind of heart untouched in any way by the cries of pain by the first victim, his own child, as it did not deter him from finishing off the second kid.

A man used a hot pressing iron to hurt his son, leaving behind a large sore. Earlier, a woman had put the hands and legs of a three-year-old boy in fire, leaving him deformed for life.

With no iota of pity and compassion in their hearts and demeanour, we are compelled to conclude that some persons carry the human frame and look, yet their hearts are, by and large, animalistic in nature.

Perhaps, that is why we must not only be security-conscious about persons we deal with these days; we should be wary of even our relations, given the crazy times in which we are today.

It is a subject worth exploring by psychologists and other social scientists because beneath it all are societal issues worth considering by policy-makers.

Some might argue that murders have been committed over the years but received little or no publicity as being observed today. While we would not want to enter into any argument over the frequency of the actions, suffice it to point out that something unusual and uncharacteristic of our culture is beginning to dawn upon us in a manner which calls for immediate study and action.

We need a reliable statistics of the trend for an academic study with a view to seeking solution, and in this direction the relevant professionals such as psychiatrists, psychologists, social scientists and the police would be valuable.

The economic challenges and the accompanying pressure have never been so devastating as being experienced in today's Ghana.

The number of suicides, it would be recalled, has also witnessed a rise and this, when considered alongside the murder of women by their spouses, points at a worrying trend.

Something is definitely wrong and in a country where a visit to the psychiatrist is considered an anathema, we have a Herculean task advising people with traces of mental challenges to see these mental experts. A lot of us need to see psychiatrists for attention. A man who slices the throat of his spouse, a man who kills his two children and their mother and a father who uses a hot pressing iron to sear his son are all reflections of a major societal malaise.

 

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