This tragic story on GraphicOnline illustrates quite clearly the dangers of ignorance, and why it is one of the biggest problems we need cleared from this country.

Motherhood is not an easy business, so if you don’t know something at the very least you enquire from those more experienced than you are.

And not knowing that DDT is poisonous? I mean, who doesn’t know that?

A 23 year old woman is in the grips of police after she administered an enema to her child, now deceased. The enema, applied in our part of the world with that lovely device called ‘bentua’, was made of DDT.

DDT, of course, is that most deadly of pesticides. It’s one of the most common, and the fact that the woman did not know about it, or knew and used it anyway, is an indication of gross negligence.

Worse, she said she obtained it from someone “who she had met whilst carrying her baby on her back”. For some reason the person prescribed DDT for her and she also went to use it.

She said the baby was suffering from abnormal body temperature and she administered the enema as a cure. It turned out to be fatal.

The mother is in police grips as investigations continue. The body of the child is to be exhumed for a proper autopsy to be carried out.