My child knows her father’s identity – woman
LAMGABHI ETIYENI – “If he wants compensation, he must just say how much.”
This was the reaction of the woman accused of illegally collecting maintenance money from four different men on the pretext that they fathered her child. This story was published in last weekend’s edition of the Eswatini News.
Narrating her version of the story, she said it happened that she gave birth to a baby girl, while she was married to her now former husband, who was one of the suspected fathers of the child. She admitted to have cheated on her husband a couple of times with the soldier nurse.
“It is very true that the soldier nurse is not the father of my child. I do not know if he was filled with his love for me at the time, but the soldier nurse voluntarily took responsibility for supporting the child. I had done my best to hide the father of my child from the family because it was already causing problems in my marriage,” she said. The mother claimed that the soldier nurse came to her family to pronounce himself as the father of the child.
“He told my family that he did not want to ruin my marriage but was the father of my child and offered to support her. That is why I am surprised as to why is insulting and exposing me like this. I am actually thinking of taking legal action against him, that is what my brother is also suggesting,” she said.
Refuted
The mother refuted the soldier nurse’s claims that he maintained the child for seven years, alleging that this was further from the truth. “He is saying he took care of the child for seven years, which is not true. The child only went to him last year, when she started Grade I. This year, she is here with me doing Grade II. There was nothing he was doing for the child. I took care of the child’s maintenance while he was staying with her. To tell you the truth, the last time he took care of the child was when she was nine months old in my tummy.”
The woman insisted that the soldier nurse did not take care of the child after she was born, claiming that such responsibility was taken care of by her husband. “We spoke and settled our differences with my husband and he then took care of her without any problem.”
Asked on the pictures the soldier nurse claims the woman posted on facebook showing the child with the husband, she did not deny that.
“Yes, I posted the pictures of the child with him because he was my husband. He would not have stopped supporting the child of his wife even if he knew the child was not his.”
Pressed to reveal the father of the child based on the information that a police officer at Matsapha College was the one, the woman chose to play her cards closer to her chest. “I will not reveal the identity of my child’s father. As far as I know, no DNA has been done with the other men. We have so far done the DNA with the soldier nurse. This means even the men I had previous relationships with would have to take the DNA looking at the way he (soldier nurse) is behaving.” The woman claims the soldier nurse was called by her family after he sent one of his elders to approach her family.
She said: “He sent one of his relatives to approach my family and when he was asked to attend a meeting, he refused after making it clear that he had already approached the DPM’s Office on the issue. We were then confused as to why he had sent his elder to our family if he did not want to talk.”
The woman also confirmed that the DNA testing undertaken by the soldier nurse was paid for by one of her brothers, who is based in the United States of America (USA). “He was accusing me, saying I should pay half of the DNA testing costs while the other half would be paid by him. When the time came for him to pay his half after my family offered to take care of my half, he bolted, saying that he will not pay for the DNA,” the woman continued to say.
She reiterated that the soldier nurse last bought clothes for the child when she was born and that was the last time he made some contributions.
Response
“I can even count the clothes that he bought and repay him.” When asked if the child knew her real father, the mother’s response was to the affirmative,” she said.
She added: “The child knows who her real father is. Besides, the way my child was treated by his family was clear that she did not belong there because they did not hide it from her. His other children would sometimes tell my child that she did not look like any of them.”
She said as far as she was concerned, her child did not need any counselling as she was still very young to understand what was going on. “I have spoken to her a number of times after inquiring about her birth certificate. I told her that it was not properly written and told her that we needed to fix it after telling her the surname of her father. My family advised me that since I know who the father is, I should still take him to the DNA so that we can be able to change the child’s birth certificate,” she said.
The woman claimed that the father of the child is not running away from his responsibilities, pointing at that he has never asked anybody to feed the child in the first place.
“He has never denied being the father of the child. A gun was never pointed at the soldier nurse to maintain the child, he did it out of his own free will,” she elaborated.
She confessed to have gone separate ways with her husband and was now staying at her parental home.
Explaining further, she said: “What is causing me pain is that one of the other men they are saying is one of the fathers, we actually started going out when I already had the child. Besides, he was my boyfriend and so naturally, he did not have problem assisting his girlfriend with the motherhood duties. You cannot have a relationship with a woman who has a child and not support her child.”
The woman accused the soldier nurse of being a trouble-maker, claiming that her family wanted nothing to do with him. “He should deal with his personal stress and leave us out of it. He makes a lot of noise yet he has nothing to show for it. I sent him hot messages and told him that he will die poor a man if he continues to behave the way he’s doing,” she said. The woman further made claims that the soldier nurse signed a document at the Social Welfare Department, where he said he would not be seeking any compensation for supporting the child.
“Everything was signed in black and white where he said he did not want any refund. What compensation can he really expect when on the other side he is saying the four men were all supporting the child? Will he also refund them for supporting a child that is not theirs? I doubt that,” the woman said.
She also confessed to her relationship with the police officer, who she refused to neither confirm nor deny as the true father of the child.
“I have had relationships in the past but I would never be in a relationship with the soldier nurse, never. He has lot of drama. What kind of a husband is he when he has to approach another man and tell him that I am having an unfaithful relationship with another man. How do you even speak to a man whose wife you sleep with? That was unfortunately the behaviour of the man I thought was a husband,” she complained.
She accused the soldier nurse of going behind her back and pocking his nose into her personal life despite the fact that their relationship ended.
“He (soldier nurse) is very concerned about what is happening in my life,” she said.
“I have a life and he cannot stop me from being in love relationships with other men. What I have noted is that men want me and it does not sit down well with him.”
The woman said the soldier nurse was not different from her, claiming that he had a bad past in terms of relationships.
She alleged: “He had a wife who was a head teacher but she left him. He then got into a relationship with a nurse and she also left him. I heard that his young girlfriend has also left him. My brother is well known at home and he (soldier nurse) has been trying unsuccessfully to convince him to embark on some projects, but my brother would hear none of that. Maybe, that’s the reason he tries to paint me black with regards to the issue of her child.”
Pushing
The woman claimed that even the police officer was considering taking legal action against the soldier nurse. “He was actually the one pushing him (police officer) to take the DNA test as he was not sure about the child. Fortunately, everything has been cleared, he is not the father and should leave us in peace.”
The woman advised the soldier nurse to send his family representatives to her family if he wants compensation over the child. “He should come and tell us how much we must pay him and it will be done. We need to know if it is E10 000 or E5 000 he wants, we will pay him.”
The woman then apologised to the nation for the negativity created about her on the issue, saying the soldier nurse was only acting out of anger and not telling the whole truth. “Even the woman who was assisting us at the Social Welfare department was getting tired of his drama. That is why we have taken a decision as a family to hide the identity of my child’s father from him because his mission is to ruin the relationship his (police officer) life especially because he is married.”
One of the fathers is said to be now residing in South Africa while the other two could not be reached for comment at the time of compiling this report. The police officer’s cell phone rang unanswered at the time of compiling this report yesterday.