Ever heard of a town or village where all women are forbidden to give birth? You can imagine the sufferings they go through each day, all the days of their life. Where do these women go to whenever they are pregnant? Are they suffering for sins unknown to them?
How about a village where pregnant women have to be rushed out when about entering labor because an age-old tradition bars birthing in the town?
Well, in Ghana’s Mafi-Dove community in the Central Tongu district of the Volta Region, located along the Accra- Aflao road, lies such
fate for inhabit
ants.
Comprising largely peasant farmers, Kwame Tsiditse Gbenua, a community elder informed BBC that the ancestor who discovered the land while on a hunting expedition was instructed by a voice from the sky that the land was holy.
Thus, while it could be inhabited, there ought to be no birthing, rearing of domestic animals nor burials on it.
With the custom in place, pregnant women have to walk long distances or be transported to other villages to de
liver their babies.
At the moment, the younger women in the village want the law scrapped to enable them to deliver their babies in the community without the associated hustle of having to be rushed to a neighboring town just to avoid violating the taboo and offending the gods.
A female resident of the community, Hannah Kosinah, has appealed to the Togbui
or chief of the town to abolish the custom, noting that other towns with similar rules have scrapped theirs to reflect modern contingencies.
Thanks to the curious taboo, no domestic animal can be spotted in Dove except for birds in the sky.It remains to be seen
if any woman in the community will dare brave having a baby in the community to see what fate might befall her or the baby. The elders, however, say that any baby born in the town will be deformed.
