These people have never seen Malawi, Mozambique or any other place besides Zimbabwe. We should remove that tag, register these people Mr. Speaker Sir, and give them birth certificates. We should also give them registration certificates when they reach the age of 16. This is because as long as these people are deregistered, not registered and not accounted for, we cannot know their age and nationality because we would have thrown them out of the only Zimbabwe that they know. We cannot optimally and efficiently support the eradication of child marriages. We also need to call the tradition of umholo wewizana that obtained and may be still obtains in parts of Plumtree and also kuzvarira which still obtains in Mashonaland.
We need to call for the eradication of such a tradition and such a norm where a father before they give their hand in marriage for their daughter, they indulge in copulation which results in pro-creation with their daughter before they give them off for marriage. I speak about those that are above 16 and 18 but still we should, in the same vein, call for the eradication of such norms, values and traditions because I know there are a lot of people out there that are waiting to hear this. This is because there are moribund, archaic, antiquated, historic and very old traditions which should be eradicated.
Mr. Speaker Sir, as we talk of hunger, we need to know that our children are being sold off for subsistence in the households. We need to embrace command agriculture, support the Presidential input support scheme, the agrarian reform programme and also support the drought mitigation programme by His Excellency, the President through the Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Dr. Made, so that we eradicate in total the issue of child marriages. A lot of our girl children are being sold off to mitigate and to inculcate issues to do with subsistence in the households.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I have got before me here an eight point plan which if adhered to, will also lead to eradication of child marriages in total. The first one is the health issue. As long as we embrace issues to do with health, we will optimally adhere to the concerns of the girl child. As long as they can go to health institutions where they can be attended to efficiently and optimally, we will be able to reduce and eradicate the issues of child marriages. So, right to health should also be coupled with both health of the girl child and eradication of child marriages.
The second one will be – as we embrace the Agrarian Reform Programme of 2000, we also need to make sure that those that were in the compounds are not left out in terms of land re-distribution because they are also the formally marginalised black majority. Those that were in the compounds live in one room or in a two roomed house where the mother, father, grandfather and everybody else including the girl child is embedded. We need to make sure that as they also benefit from the Agrarian Reform Programme, they spread their wings wide and get to find time to get into houses and buildings that are extended to an extent that they do not live in a one room together with their parents where they then get sight of what adults indulge in form of pro-creation – [Laughter.] – which is going to lead them on a path in quest to get married quickly.
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