Names of absent baby daddies to be published
Authorities at the Botswana Police Services (BPS) are ready to publish names and pictures of all baby daddies who neglect their parental responsibilities under their wanted people list.
It is common that whenever law officers are on the hunt for guardians of neglected or abandoned children, mothers mostly bear the brunt compared to men.
Speaking to The Midweek Sun in an interview, Director of Gender and Child Protection Unit Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police, Goitseone Ngono said this is not because fathers are being favoured.
Ngono said that there are many reasons that led to women dominating Police’s wanted people list for child neglect. Among them is that once born, children mostly stay with their mothers and not their fathers.
“As the police, when we are called, we get to understand that the child had all along been living with the mother and the mother has now deserted the child.
“We have no option but to look for the mother because at the time of reporting, she would be the only known guardian of the child,” Ngono said.
Such cases often involve unmarried people, meaning that issues of baby daddies if brought in make the case complicated.
She added that even as they hunt for parents of the child, they do so in the best interests of the child.
“Issues of who is the father of the child are not easy to tackle. Sometimes one will find that even the child does not know who their father is and the police digging and bringing such to the child might not be the best way to go about it,” she said.
She said there are complex family issues that are better ignored until such a time that the family will find the need to bring both the mother and the father into the lives of their children.
But this does not mean that men can celebrate and think they are off the hook. The police can and will publish names of all baby daddies who abandon their children while they were identified as guardians of the children.
“When we get to a certain home and find that the father had been living with the child, we will publish his names under our wanted people list.
“If both the mother and the father had been living with the child, both their names will be published and they will be charged with child neglect,” Ngono said.