Senior Chief Madzimawe of the NGONI people of CHIPATA has punished parents who allowed their children to be dancing queens at a local tavern.
He says the parents will be cleaning a local clinic and a school for five days as part of a community service.
“These girls in particular were not drinking alcohol but were turned into dancing queens by someone who has been operating a tarven at the village and you can imagine that these are school going children at Madzimawe Primary School,” he said.
Chief Madzimawe says the owner of the tavern will be dealt with on Friday this week.
“I will not condone school going girls being paraded to dance at the village taverns and on Friday we are sorting out the owner of the tavern nicely,” he said.
And the traditional leader has punished one of his village headmen for running a secret unwritten law that aided early child marriages.
He says the headman and his assistant will give him three goats fines or face one month community service under customary law.
“I was surprised to learn that there is an unwritten law not to tell anyone if a child gets married and all this was not made known to me,” Chief Madzimawe said.
Speaking during a sensitisation meeting at CHITEU Village, the traditional leader says he will not condone moral decay in his Chiefdom as children should grow up into responsible Zambians.
“Things have been extremely bad regarding child marriages and public nuisances in the village where the village leadership had a secret law where his people where to tell no one about children getting married,” he said.
Chief MADZIMAWE says he has since created a village committee which he is looking forward to have a village that others can admire.
This is a very good and knowledgeable chief. I think he originates from Nyasaland. Way to go chief, encourage your mbuya Bemba chiefs to follow suit.
This chief is an engineer by profession, he should start new or renewable energy consulting.
This is draconian. What rights does he have to punish anyone? Dont over react people. What laws have the parents broken? It might be immoral, but a chief should not have any power to punish any citizen. Slippery slope. I have no time for chiefs, they are an outdated concept.
@Nono They are not outdated.Its just that you ve been brainwashed by colonialism which makes you think everything African should be shunned and everything European should be copied. Colonialism branded the master civilised and the colonised and his culture savage.
This created an inferiority complex in the colonised who ended up wanting to distance themselves from their culture. I admit chiefs need to fit into the new dispensation so their challenge now is how to make themselves relevant in modern times. Their now mentally colonised subjects are not listening to them and chiefs are losing their authority.
way to go your royal highness
Good job your highness. Keep at it. Some of these parents need a stern hand.
Well done chief……we need more chiefs like you.
Bayete nkhosi ndifethu mboni
What a great senior chief he is we need more if them to be punishing such parents..sanity has to be there..
Child marriage should be outlawed and it should not be left in the hards of a chief. He can report the perpetrators to the appropriate authorities, but he has no power to judge and punish.
The chief should have commented on the mayor wearing bed sheets or disciplining him for embarrassing people from the east The mayor should be given be one-month community service for being scruffy and the wife for not advising 2 hrs community service