Man ‘tows’ wife to the police

An angry husband has dragged his wife to the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service in Sekondi for collecting cloths from various rubbish dumps in the metropolis, washing and selling them to unsuspecting members of the public as "Obroni woewu" (used clothing).

The woman, Janet Eshun, unemployed, wakes up early in the morning and moves from dumping site to dumping site as the refuse trucks dump their waste. She then carefully sorts out the waste picking up discarded cloths which she sends home, painstakingly washes them and then sells them in town.

The husband, Mr Joseph Mensah, alias Kweku Nti, who could not stand the stench and the health implications of his wife's new found trade, reported the matter to the DOVVSU for advice, but Janet would not listen because of her teeming customers.

Janet, who admitted collecting cloths from the dumping sites, was warned by the unit commander on many occasions to stop her kind of trade but because of the huge market she had found, she always went back for more whenever she ran out of stock.

Mr Mensah, who got fed up and did not know who to report her to anymore after warnings and advice by the police went unheeded, decided to discipline her himself by subjecting her to a severe beating which resulted in he and his wife being sent to the DOVVSU.

According to the Commander of the DOVVSU, ASP Cecilia Arko, Mr Mensah reported the incident to her unit and they invited Janet on many occasions to caution her. "But the husband kept coming with the same report and later we heard that out of anger he assaulted the wife".

She said that according to the husband, when the woman returned to the house with the stuff from the rubbish dump, the odour that emanated from the cloths made the house uninhabitable.

ASP Arko said the serious aspect of Janet's behaviour was that apart from selling the cloths to unsuspecting members of the public, she always went to the rubbish dumps with one of their two little children.

She added that she could not understand why the woman would go to that extent and that the woman claimed she also got some supplies from the rubbish collectors of the various waste management companies at the sites.

ASP Arko used the opportunity to appeal to the Shama Ahanta East Metropolitan Assembly to take full control of the site to prevent people from misusing the place.