Physically challenged 26 year old Georgina Oboh struggles to make ends meet to enable her cater for herself after the maltreatment her mother subjected her to prompted her to travel to work.
Georgina told crimecheckghana how her mother maltreated her because of her predicament. She recalled how she used to soil herself when she was in her menstrual period because she couldn’t afford sanitary pad while her mother looked on unconcerned. She said after her parents broke up, she lived with her mother who married another man and bore him children. She said her mother after having the other children started abusing her and that impelled her to travel to work to fend for herself despite her disability.
“I was living with my mother but she did not care about my well-being because she had other children who were not physically challenged. I could not bear the abuse any longer so I had to run to Kumasi to work so I can take care of myself. As I speak I don’t know the whereabouts of my father so I just have to struggle on my own.” She narrated her ordeal.
Ms. Oboh said her mother told her she became physically challenged after a doctor injected her with wrong medication in a bid to treat her of severe skin rashes which she suffered when she was a toddler. “My mother told me when she gave birth to me I was not crippled. She said I used to suffer skin rashes so she decided to get medical care for me. She said when she took me to the hospital a doctor gave me an injection after which I got paralyzed.” Georgina recalled.
The young lady said when she got to Kumasi to work, she lived with her friend and her husband whom she knew back in her village in their wooden structure. She said because the room was small, she had to be sleeping in someone’s shop. She said the shop owner later became unhappy about her and stopped her from sleeping in the shop. Georgina said with the little money she managed to save, she pleaded with her landlord to rent the room she currently lives in so that she completes the payment later.
The industrious but physically challenged lady, notwithstanding her situation, said she sells mobile airtime and the meager profit she makes from the business is what she uses to feed herself and her brother who has been helping her push her wheel chair. She said she starves and faces possible eviction by her landlord as life hits her hard because her business has become unprofitable.
“If I have to go to work I would need the help of my brother because I cannot push the wheel chair by myself. Sometimes I make Five Ghana Cedis in the day from the business and from that money I pay for my transport and share the remaining with my brother. My landlord asked me to vacate the room but I pleaded with him to give me some time to pay and that is why I’m still living in this room if not he would have evicted me by now. If I leave here I will be homeless because I do not have anybody to go to.” She said.
Depressed Georgina said she thought of taking her life but through the advice of a Catholic Priest she abandoned the thoughts of harming herself.
Crime Check Foundation, CCF gave her an amount of Five Hundred Ghana Cedis for her upkeep when the Foundation caught-up with her whiles she was struggling to cross the street to work.
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