Court Confines Mother, Child To Orphanage

Precious Mensah, the 23-year-old mother who was arrested for offering her three-year-old son for sale at Agona Swedru, and her child have now been put in the care of an orphanage at Agona Mensakrom, after an order by the Agona Swedru Circuit Court. The trial judge, Mr N.K. E. Osam, who had earlier directed the police to hand over the child to the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) to cater for him, while Precious was remanded in police custody, upheld the DSW�s request to place both mother and child in the custody of the Mother Care Orphanage at Mensakrom. The court�s initial reluctance was based on the fear that she could sneak out of the orphanage with her son and sell the boy elsewhere. Mr Osam, therefore, directed the police investigator to monitor the movement of Mensah and her child at the orphanage. The Mirror in its May 11, 2013 edition reported a story with the headline, �Woman offers son for sale.� It indicated that when a Kpando-based trader, Precious Mensah, was busily bargaining with people over the GH�8,000 price tag she had placed on the head of her three-year-old son at Maahodwe, a suburb of Agona Swedru, hardly did she know that two of the potential buyers were police detectives. Precious, 23, allegedly told the policemen in mufti and some other witnesses during the bargaining process that she was cash-strapped, since her father sacked her from his home when she got pregnant. She was also alleged to have said that the boy she was offering for sale was not just fatherless, but also an obstacle to her movement. According to Precious, that informed her decision to get rid of her son so she had travelled to Agona Swedru where she learnt there was a ready market for such transactions because of the proliferation of the �sakawa� business. She was arrested on April 23, 2013 after she had demanded between GH�8,000 and GH�10,000 as the price for her son.