The Member of Parliament for Gomoa Central, Kwame Asare Obeng, popularly known as A Plus, has announced plans to sponsor a private member’s bill in Parliament to punish women who engage in paternity fraud.

Speaking on Prime Time with George Quaye, he said there should be “a legislation that prescribes punishment for people who engage in paternity fraud”.

According to A Plus, some women are aware they had multiple partners within a certain period. He stated that “women knows that between a certain period they were having something to do with one or two men”.

He backed his claim with an account of his experience at a health facility, saying “out of 10 women who come for DNA with their kids about four do not belong to the men”.

The Gomoa Central MP argued that punishment for paternity fraud should be severe, particularly where the woman is married. He said, “the punishment must be more if she’s married than a single woman”.

He stressed the emotional and financial burden on men who unknowingly raise children who are not biologically theirs. As an example, he cited situations where “a woman goes to court with her husband and three kids or four kids do not belong to the man”.

A Plus maintained that there is “no justification” for a woman to deceive a man about paternity, even if she had suffered abuse for being barren. He called for sanctions “if a DNA test is done and it is discovered that you the woman went to cheat or for whatever reason the child is not your husband’s and you hadn’t declared it early on”.

He further pointed to what he described as the severe consequences for men who discover such cases later in life, recounting an instance where “somebody committed suicide somewhere outside” after learning that the children he had raised were not biologically his.