The Blind father who chained his four mentally ill children in a deplorable room as a form of protection has died worsening the plight of the Children.
In December 2020, Starr News Eastern Regional Correspondent Kojo Ansah comprehensively reported on the awful situation of the children.
However, nothing significant has been done to rescue the children from the dehumanising condition in which they live at Akyem New Tafo in Abuakwa North Municipality in the Eastern region.
The death of their 50-year-old blind father Fuseini Yussif who stood against all odds to take care of them has become a major setback.
Fuseini Yussif died on February 28, 2022, after a short illness leaving the vulnerable children in a state of complete hopelessness.
The mother of the children alleged to be mentally unstable reportedly abandoned them in 2014 leaving the burden of parenting of five children to the now-deceased blind husband.
The children are now 6, 10, 12 and 14 years of age.
The 8-year-old was taken to a residential home by the department of social welfare in 2020 leaving the rest of the children to their fate.
Whilst the 14-year-old boy has been wandering nakedly in the streets of Akyem Tafo, his other siblings are confined in a dirty environment in the family house.
Their dignity as humans has been stripped off, quality of life which is a basic right denied.
The stigma and discrimination against these malnourished and mentally deranged children have worsened in the community after the death of their father.
Alhassan Yussif, a maize supplier and a member of the family said he has temporarily taken up the responsibility of care for the children after the death of their blind father until they get help.
“I make sure I feed and bathed them twice a day but regardless of how many times you bath them they will still make themselves dirty and defecate in their dresses.
Now the little food left is what we are using to feed them so if people will help us. Now we need support to find decent accommodation for the kids, food to feed them and clothes because they don’t have clothes to wear.
“We want the social welfare to take the children away to a special school they will get better treatment because none of the family members will have time to take care of the children,” Alhassan Yussif said
Hajara Iddriss, a member of the family said the family needs support to put up a decent accommodation for the children.
“Our appeal to government and other philanthropists to help us take care of the children. Again the most important thing is for them to be put in a special school. Because of how their late father raised them and isolated them when they see human beings then they run away but after the death of their father, they are now getting closer to other family members who visit them. when you talk to them in Hausa they understand” Hajara said
For the sister of the deceased blind father, Hassana Yussif, she wants government through the department of social welfare to adopt the children to a special school for their dignity to life to be restored while accessing quality healthcare and education.
The Children’s Act 560 of Ghana, states that every child including Children with disabilities has the right to education. This has been reinforced with an Inclusive Education Policy that seeks to ensure that children with disability have equal opportunities in Education.
The Department of social welfare in Abuakwa North municipality has made some interventions since 2018 having sent the children to Accra Psychiatric hospital for assessment.
The Department through the disability fund also supported the now-deceased father with some food items.
Attempts to know the next line of intervention by the Abuakwa North Director and the Eastern Regional Director of the Department of Social welfare were not successful as they declined the interview.
Checks from the social welfare department indicated that the only residential home in the region is overcrowded hence the social welfare department does not have any care centre to enrol the children.
The late blind father Fuseini Yussif narrated to Starr News earlier before his death how his wife abandoned their children in 2014 and left the marriage
“I got married and we gave birth to five children all of them being boys. Then after that there were a lot of problems were confronted with -all the children cant talk also they have mental so my wife decided to quit the marriage and leave us after she was advised by some people in the community, so she finally quit the marriage and left I and the five children”.Fuseini told Starr News Eastern Regional Correspondent Kojo Ansah.
He narrated further ” So far I know I don’t have family, even though my parents are dead long time ago but my other relatives have decided not to care about me any longer after they realised the kind of problems I am confronted with so I am the family myself and God is my helper and yourself who is now bringing out our problems to the entire world to help us. Even this building we are sleeping under can easily collapse and it will be a tragedy but we have no option now than to bear the risk of staying in this room. But I pray that one day God should let help reach us”.
“I was a cobbler then but I stopped since things were not going on well with me due to my blindness and the work I do and decided to go to the side of the road to beg for money in order to cater for myself and the five children. One of my boys is now mad and is now wandering at the lorry station, but his madness is the mild type that he can easily be cured if little medication and attention is given to him”
The late Fuseini lamented how family and society discriminated against them.
“people claim the family has been cursed and being bewitched for a sin committed in the family. When I leave the children on the house by the time I come they have been beaten with sticks hence injuries all over their bodies reason why I chain and lock them”.
The late blind father was worried about the deplorable and unhygienic condition of the building in which he lived with his vulnerable children.
“You can see for yourself, this is the kind of unhygienic and poor shelter my children and I live. Now the only support I need is financial support that will help to be able to attend to any eye special clinic to get healed from my blindness since I was told by one eye specialist doctor that my blindness is curable. I am the one who takes care of the children now, I wash their cloth, I bath them, cook their food, in fact when you see me in the morning I look more like a woman”.
Source: Ghana/StarrFm.com.gh/Kojo Ansah
