While on a climbing expedition to Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2001, Sacramento State biological science professor Ruth Ballard and a Graduate Student got the idea to create a Tanzanian DNA database based on the fact that there were still many tribes with unstudied DNA markers. When Ballard approached the Tanzanian government for permission, they asked her to develop a database for the entire country that would help establish and resolve paternity issues and crimes like rape, murder and theft.

“It was a bigger project than I first imagined,” Ballard said. “The government wanted me to leave their country a legacy. We would go out on ’saliva safaris’ in a great, big vehicle for the day,” Ballard said. “We took over 1000 samples from many different tribes.”

According to the article in The State Hornet:

“Due to increasing industrial growth, many Tanzanian men have moved to other cities to find jobs. In the process, most have left their wives and children behind,” Ballard said. “These women and their children are left in abject poverty and are desperate for the ability to force the men to pay for their kids. It’s a bad situation…the women want it solved.”

Ballard, along with agencies that help women and children rise above poverty, is working on trying to make the paternity test affordable and accessible to all women.

If the government enforces the paternity law in a stricter manner, the goal of making the test more readily available for women will be possible.

The team’s next goal involves building a new forensics laboratory in Tanzania so Tanzanian researchers can update their database independently without the need for outside help. The database will play a huge role in helping Tanzanian people with their paternity issues, Ballard said.

Professor Ballard has announced that the Tanzanian database will be featured in the Journal of Forensic Sciences in January.

The F.B.I. has been training police officers in other countries in Forensic Science.

According to an October 22, 2007 article on Bernama dot-com, The Malaysian National New Agency, beyond general forensics, courses in forensics crime scene management were also offered to Kuala Lumpurian and other Malaysian, police officers.

All of this training has been in anticipation of the passing of a draft bill…

“…aimed at establishing a DNA database has been formulated and will be submitted to the Attorney-General’s Department for approval.

Deputy Internal Security Minister Datuk Fu Ah Kiow said that once the green light was given, it would be tabled in the Dewan Rakat.

(The Dewan Rakat, which literally means “people’s hall”, is the House of Representatives in Parliament of Malaysia. - Wikipedia)

The database would enable all DNA samples to be stored and used to assist investigations or in court proceedings, he said when responding to Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar (BN-Santubong).

Fu also said that foreigners accounted for only two per cent of crimes committed in the country.

‘But for violent crimes like murder and armed robbery, they accounted for between 16 and 18 per cent of the cases,’ he said. “

Hello, my name is Meagan Cantrell, welcome to my blog! I am the owner of DNA Identifiers of California which provides DNA testing services and products to organizations and the general public. You can visit my site from the link on the right side of the page.

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