Eradication of Intimate Partner Violence against Men: The Role of Citizens’ Mediation Centre

                                                

                                             

                                      Domestic Violence against Men:                                                                             The Trauma of Hidden Biological Fathers of Wives’ Children

There is an African adage that says: “The mother is the only one that knows the true father of her child.” This goes to confirm that domestic abuse against the men is a reality, so long as the motherhood of a child cannot be doubted under normal circumstances, but that of the fatherhood of the same child can be doubted or could even be denied by the mother.

In a typical African family setting, there are categories of children that are referred to as “bastard” because they are believed to be products of infidelity of their mothers. Sometimes when a child continues to misbehave continually without taking corrections, such child is tagged “a bastard” which implies an illegitimate child in the family.

The relevance of this issue to the subject matter of domestic violence against men is to create awareness that domestic abuse is beyond physical assault that is commonly recognized as an evidence of domestic violence. Domestic violence actually includes, but not limited to abuses that are emotional, economic or psychological in nature.

Prior to the discovery of scientific application of DNA also known as deoxyribonucleic acid, which helps in detecting the biological father of a child, it was naturally difficult, if not impossible to know the true father of a child except by the mother of such child.

  

Though there are instances where both husband and wife may jointly and secretly agree that the wife should take in from another man while they are still in marriage due to some reasons bothering on the inability of the husband to impregnate a woman. In this case there could be justification for the wife, if in the future she decides to leak the secret and recognize her man-friend as the biological father of their children.

However, hidden biological father becomes abusive where there is no case of the man’s reproductive deficiency, and the wife decides to have children for another man while still in marriage for other reasons best known to her. Cases like this are becoming the order of the day in many families in the recent times. This has put many men into a life-time psychological depression particularly for those who became aware of this paternity fraud too late in life. In such a case, the man might have spent his life-time earnings in training the illegitimate children; in some cases to the age of giving them into marriage. The question is: From where does the man start, if he had remained faithful to their marriage all through?

There was a publication in the Premium Times of February 2, 2021 titled: “DNA confirms three children from my ex-wife not mine. – Judge.” In this publication, a Judge of the Delta State High Court, Anthony Okorodas has said DNA tests have recently revealed that he is not the biological father of three children from his marriage with his former wife.

The Judge said his former wife, Celia, walked away from the marriage when the youngest child, now 17 years old was just six. He described the development as traumatic, said he and his current wife had been wholly responsible for the well-being and the education of the three children, two of whom are University Undergraduates, since their mother walked away 11 years ago.

Mr. Okorodas, who reiterated that he had had four children with his current wife, said he first got information from an anonymous during the COVID-19 lockdown in April, 2020, that the three children from his ex-wife were not his. He however, said he was only able to confirm this to be true through the DNA test in August, 2020.

“This abomination has caused excruciating mental trauma to me, my present wife, Barrister (Mrs.) Ebi Okorodas and all of the innocent children involved.” He said. According to him, following this development, his current wife, “had to agree to having DNA tests on the four children of our own marriage.” 

“The four children from my current wife confirmed to be mine.” He concluded.

As traumatic as this case may look, not every man in such a pathetic situation could be as fortunate as Mr. Okorodas who was able to start a new marriage with four legitimate children.

What a psychological domestic abuse!

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