There is an overwhelming number of men in Kampala pitching camp at Internal Affairs premises seeking to carry out DNA- genetic testing to establish paternity of their children.
Many families and relationships are under attack and unbiased observation indicates that men have resorted to DNA test to look for solid facts so as to find ways of solving the issues at hand, and put a full stop on to the ongoing conflicts.
Simon Mundeyi, the spokesperson of Ministry of Internal Affairs which oversees DNA labs in Uganda has been sharing traumatising experiences which men go through after receiving results which show a mismatch between fathers and their children.
For example, a wealthy city based businessman doubted he was the biological father of a son who is among his 15 children.
Mundeyi revealed that this property mogul secretly made a will, shared his property amongst 14 of his children and excluded this son.
The ageing moneybags entrusted the will with his lawyer who happens to be a close friend to this son he doubted.
Mundeyi added that, the lawyer leaked a will to the son who became traumatised and rushed to Court to sue his father for abandoning him.
“Court ordered that all the 15 children should be taken for a DNA test. As I speak we have been forced to offer counsellors to this tycoon because he has literally run mad,” Mundeyi said.
The results showed 11 out of 15 children don’t belong to the tycoon.
Surprisingly, the son he doubted turned out to be his and other three children.
“The man is depressed, he talks alone, he needs prayers,” Mundeyi said without revealing the names of the troubled man.
However, women have been against the idea of carrying DNA maintaining that it arouses suspicion and mistrust in families and marriages.
However, a top doctor in Kampala, Freddie Bwanga from MBN Clinical Laboratories has advised on why it is necessary to conduct the genetic test.
Below is his opinion
Our continuous unbiased observation is that by the time people come for DNA testing, the fights among them have escalated and they are looking for solid facts so as to find ways of solving the issues at hand, and put a full stop on to the ongoing conflicts.
As you know, ignoring a conflict doesn’t remove it. That s why there are Courts, Tests, etc which, if they do a good judgement, they help in many cases to resolve the conflicts.
Thus, an accurate DNA test result is usually the final and ultimate Judge that settles these extremely complex paternity or maternity or relationship disputes even if the dusputes are at level of family/home, community, Child&Family Protection Police/Court or at Administrator General level for purpose of sharing property of their deceased father.
This is the point most of us miss when thinking about DNA testing!
We tend to think so much about the very few negatives. It is like saying we stop doing HIV testing because some HIV positive patients will become depressed or even stigmatised or may be we remove Courts because they will give an accurate Judgement which hurts the other party loosing the case.
Let me put things more in perspective a bit:
Imagine a boy or man denies responsibility for making your daughter or sister, etc pregnant and totally denies biological fatherhood of the baby! Think about a fatherless child in your family!
Imagine yourself if you are a male, your husband, your son, your father, brother, leader, church pastor/Priest etc getting falsely accused by some girl/lady or even arrested for making some her pregnant when the accused man is probably not the biological father of the baby or even totally innocent but issue is motivated by malice!
Imagine a family fighting for property of the deceased man and accusing one another of not being biological children of the late man!
etc, etc.
These are very common happenings colleagues!!!
How does the family or community or Court or Administrator General resolve these issues without a DNA test?
Should we leave the children to stay fatherless?
Should we let our sons/husbands etc get imprisoned for having done nothing?
Should we leave families to fight forever for property?
Apparently, many of us falsely believe that majority of DNA testing results come out mismatched & are followed by separation of the mother and father or families plus associated child suffering. This is NOT CORRECT colleagues!
THE TRUTH : In majority of cases the DNA results show a perfect match btn child and father & actually lead to reunion of the couple (or Mother-father) to the benefit of the child(ren) after the long unsubstantiated fights.
In fact our scientific data analysis shows that in > 60% of cases, the tested child is in fact a biological child of the alleged father.
In the other almost 40%, there is a mismatch with a handful percentage may be <1% ending up in public domain and making big news.
There is a lot of counselling before and after DNA testing but still a few people go public out of some sort of anger or due to an irresponsible nearby 3rd party onlooker pushing video clips into social media.
Lastly, the recent info we saw on social media that 80% of tested children mismatch is mostlikely NOT correct; it sounded a bit of an exaggerated figure.
And very lastly, many women too order for DNA testing to answer paternity questions….yes paternity questions, and come out happy or unhappy when the results are out.
Generally, DNA Testing social issues can be confusing and surprising. In many cases, an alleged father or the mother may be happy with the matched or mismatched results.
The emotional reactions after reading results for tested people are never consistent. Each case is received differently by whatever gender or people around! I think we need to do good social scientific studies on these DNA issues.
Thank you all.