Paternity debate: Chief says raise the child, MP demands mandatory DNA testing

Batswana chief Andrew Kgosiemang says if a man raises a child but later learns the child is not his, he should rather keep the child.

He was responding to this week’s debate on mandatory DNA testing and the call for criminalising paternity fraud.

“If I raise a child and I am not the father, it’s better for me to not know and just raise the child. That’s my stance. That’s how the elders raised us,” he says.

Swapo parliamentarian Pohamba Shifeta on Tuesday called for the introduction of compulsory paternity tests for all children born to unmarried couples to eradicate paternity problems in the country.

He said this during a Ministry of Justice and Labour Relations’ budget debate in the National Assembly.

“There are some men who have taken their own lives because they were given children and after that these children were taken away from them, after some years. The only solution is the DNA test, so that from the start a man knows it’s really his child or not,” he stated.

Shifeta claimed that in some cases, children have been registered with multiple men listed as fathers, leading to confusion.

“Some children are registered to have been fathered by two to three fathers and they are unknowingly paying maintenance to the children,” he said.

In an interview with The Namibian on Wednesday, Shifeta clarified that the proposed DNA tests should be administered free of charge in public hospitals before a child’s birth is officially registered.
“The intention of bringing that up is that every day you hear a man is disappointed in his partner because he was not informed he is not the real father,” he said.

He added that the emotional impact extends to the children as well.

“To avoid certain incidents, [we propose] that if you are unmarried, every time you have a new-born, [the child] must undergo DNA testing before the child is registered,” he said. “For married couples, it is up to them if they want to do so.”

Shifeta argued that compulsory paternity testing is in the best interest of the child.

“They are always left traumatised and embarrassed when they hear that the person they were introduced to as their father is not their real father.”
He urged the government to foot the bill for such testing.

“The government should make it available at the hospitals,” he said.
During the debate on Tuesday, deputy minister of urban and rural development Evelyn Nawases-Taeyele said it is unfair that only women are being blamed.

“You men have been going to that woman. There is no way that I will call out Venaani’s name if Venaani was never close to me,” she said.

The issue was originally raised by Affirmative Repositioning legislator Tuhafeni Kalola, who expressed concerns about women lying about the identity of a child’s father for potential gain.

He argued that it could have serious effects on the men who believe themselves to be fathers, as well as on the children.

“It should be criminalised for real, because you find out that men have been given children that don’t belong to them, and women are doing this for economic survival,” he said.

There are currently a number of legal sanctions that can be applied to a person who lies about parentage, however, DNA testing is usually only initiated in situations where parentage is already in doubt.

The Namibian Constitution states that children are “subject to legislation enacted in their best interests and, as far as possible, have the right to know and be cared for by their parents.”

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