Teen Mothers, their
Kids and Education
Below is the link to
President Zuma’s address on the issue
President Zuma said “teen mothers
must be sent away to study…. ” Well, I am not a teen mom (not a mom at all) and
I get where the President is coming from, hopefully it will not be taken as a
matter of “ingoba akazele/ she doesn’t have kids”. The burden on the public
purse cannot be ignored and it will not go away if we don’t change this wheel.
As an aspiring public policy maker/specialist I believe tough decisions must be
taken, decisions that don’t involve choices like “you can use a condom, the
clinic offers family planning, you know you can have an abortion, follow the
ABC, stay away from boys/girls and don’t engage in adult activities”. Simply
because, once these choices are given (as history will tells us) the
consequences borne by the state have nothing to do with choices since the state
has to be human, consider the bill of rights etc. And so the state will carry
the burden at the expense of tax payers and other programmes.
I grew up in an impoverished community
where I saw kids being raised by their grandmothers, those kids (now young
adults) today have kids of their own and they rely on their mother’s pension/ meagre
salary, the great grandma’s pension and the government grant. It is a CYCLE, a
cycle of poverty. A mere grant from the state and sex education is clearly not
enough. Now, let’s take the concerns of the President and make them work, it doesn’t
have to be Robben Island or something like that but something different than
before has got to be done.
People are asking “what about the
boys?” Good question! What about the boys? Where are the boys? In my 30-odd
years of life that is the one question that is still unanswered “what about the
boys”? 80% of the time they are nowhere to be seen. These teen moms face the
music alone and grow up to fend for their kids alone.
I ask “what about the girl child?”
that will relive the same cycle as their mom, grandma, great grandma and so on
like the wheel that just keeps on turning.
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