Woman legislator advocates for polygamy if wives do not want to bear more children

Below are her comments together with those of two other senators who spoke before her

HON. SEN. MURWIRA: Thank you Mr. President for the opportunity that you have given me. I want to second the motion moved by Hon. Sen. Musaka which is focusing on population increase. Increase in population is good because it has a positive bearing on our economy and businesses. For example, Mr. President, it is like Zim Gold, every month it sells 10 000 litres.  If we were to bear more children and come to a population of 20 million, it means the litres would increase and also the money that we get in the country will increase, as well as the labour and employment is created. It is not only Zim Gold that we are talking about but we are talking about other companies that will come into this nation.

Mr. President, this will lead to positive development on the part of Government and the people.   More profit means that even companies will now be resuscitated. Once companies are operational, it means people can now get employment. Mr. President, an increase in population attract investors from outside because they are assured that there are customers in Zimbabwe.  My request to the Government is that what we are talking about is not that tomorrow we should wake up and say children should be born.  We want the Government to take this up and consider this.  We also request Senators and MPs to take the issue to their constituencies and encourage people to bear more children.

Mr. President, we will be doing this to ensure that we have more schools, hospitals, wider roads, decent accommodation and other things that will actually lead to the development of this country.  I want to thank you Mr. President.

*HON. SEN. BHOBHO:  Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to add my voice on the motion that was moved by Hon. Sen. Musaka.  I realise that it is very important because he mentioned a very important point that we need to bear more children.  For us to have a nation, it is all about having more people.  For us to have soldiers, it is because of the children that we bear.  In our time, we gave birth to a number of children.  If our generation comes to pass, there will be no children.  The chiefs were excited because they had a list of members in their community and they knew that the Bhobho family had so many people and they would be able to articulate how the chief runs his community.

We are saying, those of child bearing age should bear more children, not one or two because we need these children to be in the Defence Forces.  Thank you Mr. President.

*HON. SEN. GOTO:  Thank you Mr. President.  I rise to support the motion moved by Hon. Sen. Musaka and seconded by Hon. Sen. Murwira.  This is a very important motion.  We might be laughing but for us to be in this House, it is because we were born.  He explained that he wants people to bear more children so that there is a population increase.  If we had not been born, we could not be here.  It is true people should bear more children.  If people are few in a country it is not a nation.

I want to give an example without giving external forces.  As we moved around Mashonaland East province during COPAC outreach programme, I always told people that we should not have few children.  People would laugh at me when I was encouraging them to have more children.  I explained to them the advantages of having more children.  During the COPAC meetings, there was no one breast feeding.  When we went to Mudzi, I saw young women who were breastfeeding and I actually said to them it is better to go and sit there and breast feed from there because the noise is disrupting us.  In Hwedza, there were no young women who were breastfeeding.

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