MDC-T senator says the idea of small families was introduced by colonialists- we need big families

Having a large population will also add to the economic growth of the nation.  There will be more exports and imports leading to economic growth.  This is an issue that we may think is very trivial.  I want to thank Hon. Komichi who said that that this issue came with the Europeans when they colonised our nations.  During that time, our ancestors used to give birth to a number of children as procreation was their nature.  I remember that my grandfather had about 15 children.  In my family, if you see a family called Mundenda at Manica Bridge, our real surname is Mataga and Mundenda is a nickname because they just used to go.  If you go to Manica Bridge, it is Mundenda throughout because my grandfather used to make sure that he had women all over and they gave birth to his children.  I am sure that traditional leaders will agree with me that you had realised this issue.

To follow up on the statement given by Hon. Komichi that the Europeans are the ones who were able to see that Zimbabweans are very clever and if we encourage them to have more children, we will not be able to penetrate their country and economy.  So, they then decided to come up with issues of birth control and they started making birth control pills and other contraceptive measures and advised our women to bear fewer children.  People of my age, we used to go to school after selling groundnuts or even round nuts.  There was no money, but we went to school and now, people talk of the costs.  Now even in the fields, you cannot do much because you have few children but if you had many children like we were in our family, you would finish weeding a hectare in no time.

The chiefs have taken this up before.  They talked to our parents and discouraged people from taking contraceptive pills because they knew that the Europeans were after decreasing our population.  But through education, we thought that it was right for a person to have one or two children.  So Hon. Musaka, the mover of the motion and the seconder, you have brought a very important motion.

If you go to the rural areas and look at the homes that are built there – they are out of this world but despite the big houses, you will realise that a person has only two children.  You then say to yourself, if that person had taken that money to the Government, he would have done better than to build a mansion without the children.  Let me tell you a little story.  I am sure that we all witnessed what happened in Budiriro where a woman lost a husband and two children.  Maybe those were the only children because we never heard of how many were left and now the mother is left on her own.  What will happen is that that woman is going to die of stress.  That will be continuous stress for her and she will end up being hypertensive.  So, this motion is very important and, we need to really consider it.  I thank you.

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