Thursday, March 28, 2024

Parents should talk freely with their children about sexual reproductive health

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Janifer 11 (r) with traditonal instructer Beza Sakala during an initiation ceremony organised by the Kunda people of Mfuwe in eastern province. This was in Ndola’s Chifubu township.

Senanga District Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) Advocate Volunteer, Kapinda Mubita, said families should talk freely about sexual reproductive health with their children for them to be well informed on measures to prevent teenage pregnancies that lead to early marriages.

Mrs. Mubita said that the modern generation should do away with the old traditions of not talking about topics of sex with their children because parents have a critical role to play in their children’s lives.She added that the ending child marriage campaign can include adult mentors.She further stated that certain traditional practices such as initiation ceremonies for girls should be done after girls have completed school as most of the teachings given, lead to young girls engaging in pre-marital sex.

Mrs. Mubita observed that most girls who undergo the initiation ceremony at a young age are likely to have teenage pregnancies and not complete school compared to those that are not subjected to such ceremonies.

Meanwhile Zambia Center for Communication Program (ZCCP) says ending the Child Marriage campaign in Senanga should focus on reasons that lead to early marriages in the district.

Senanga District ZCCP/Kwatu Programs Officer Namate Lyenda said it is important to know why teenagers are engaging in early marriages for the campaign to be effective.

ZANIS reports that Mr. Lyenda stated that the pilot campaign should include women empowerment programmes as the vice is mainly caused by high poverty levels in communities.

He said communities that record early marriages need to understand the law and what it constitutes regarding early marriages because most families consider girls that have reached puberty to be adults hence, they get married at an early age.

Government through the Ministry of Gender in partnership with UNICEF is running a pilot project on ending child marriage campaign in Senanga district in Western Province and Katete district in Eastern province.

25 COMMENTS

  1. My culture does not allow me to interact in sex matters with my own children. Alangizi should be given more powers to help people like me who are disabled by our culture.

    • It’s not your problem alone. It’s the problem the world over. Most cultures around the world are just as backward as mine and yours, when it comes to sex education.

    • They are not backwards. They are what they wanted to be. And so are those you are inclined to compare them to. Societies are neither backward nor forward. They are where they are because of choices they make.

  2. Its totally against most of our cultures to talk freely about how your own children can have sex. That a disaster!!!
    Leave bazungu things to bazungu – don’t just copy ideas and try to look clever when in actual fact you are just exposing how much you have been brainwashed by bazungu.
    Disaster!!!!!

    • We are all humans. We hail from the same stock. Bazungus have had to struggle just as much to break away from destructive cultural norms. They write books about sex and sexuality. That’s partly what is helping them circumvent this illicit subject.

    • They are suffering the same problems, they just don’t put them in the news. Teenage pregnancies are the order of the day in what is generally perceived as civilized societies.

      Problem is, when it’s black it is ugly. When it’s white, it’s right. Look at the hair of most women and tell if they don’t suffer from some serious complex!

  3. We are humans, not animals. Animals learn by instinct. As humans, God gave us a rational mind, so we can sift through things by way of reason. A human baby learns how to crawl, stand-up, walk, run, speak etc. How interesting it is that, when it comes to sex, we expect ourselves to get it simply by instinct? Many young people who get married have to learn it by way of trial and error. That’s wrong.

    • Yes animals learn by instinct but they also learn by observing what their parents are doing. Animals mate right in the middle of other animals, they don’t hide like we do. When it comes to monkeys, you see the young ones giggling when their parents are at it.

    • Animals are followers of natural law. It’s sad that you want to place yourself in a position superior to animals. Animals, most of them (98-99.99%) don’t have casual sex. They only have coitus when the female is ready to conceive. They don’t need Alangizi to teach what to do. It’s all their DNA. You cannot possibly be superior to a natirally intelligent cresture which does not need a textbook to know what to do.

    • @ 4.3 Vanduu

      Vanduu, you have made your point. It is unrelated. One can teach a baboon how to ride a bicycle. To any of us, baboons included, learning how to balance on a bicycle doe not come naturally. It is something that we have to learn, preferably with somebody assisting. And yet how few of see the need to learn how to ride a woman in bed, or vice versa, a woman, her man to glory? We think, riding a woman in bed is something that we master instinctively. As a result, we miss the mark. In animals, sex is for procreation. In humans, it is first and foremost a love making affair. It is meant to be enjoyed by the pair. Animals don’t make love. Do they?

  4. The ancients preserved for their posterity a story of the king’s invisible robe. The fact is, the king was naked, his nakedness on display in public. and no one, except a child, had the courage to call it out. The fact is, our king, namely our respectable culture, has, on this so very pertinent matter, been walking naked in public, and no one has had the courage to call it out. See the prevalence of promiscuity in our society? Why do you think that is? It’s because few know how to do it the way it is supposed to be done. In consequence, those frustrated in marriage, look for it elsewhere, in hope they might be able to find it. And when they do, there is no turning back.

  5. health reproductive isn’t synonymous with sexuality.
    those of you talking about bazungus and their sexuality. I don’t know where you guys get the idea that they are more knowledgeable about sexuality than say Zambians, they are not. the culture is perceived to be more sexually liberal, but their knowhow of sex itself is the same as an average Zambian
    white girls are free sexually… and find doing certain sexual things easier (such as giving head) but when it comes to real sex, an African woman has more lessons. I don’t know about men, but as far as women go, that’s my experience. white women don’t have it compared to latinos or africans

  6. Unless if we don’t know what we are talking about, sex/sexuality, or whatever you may call it, is far much more complex than calculus. You can teach yourself calculus, all by yourself. In sex, there is reciprocity. The tragedy is that, we are to tight-lipped on the subject, it is almost a taboo for a frustrated couple to face each other and talk about their frustrations openly, preferring instead to sneak-out, under cover of darkness, in search for the ideal. Any wonder we almost got wiped-out by HIV aids, so called: “Christians,” included.

  7. Parents have primary responsibility to discuss matters of sexuality with their children. I’ve done it with boys and are very free to ask me questions of all sort. If we neglect our parental role, children will learn it wrongly from peers. Develop rapport with children and u won’t go wrong and they will make correct choices in life.

  8. Elsewhere in the world, illicit sex is not cheap. One well known personality is known to have parted with a colossal sum of $130,000.00, just to keep the matter “private.” How insulting do you suppose the wife of this man must be feeling? And while the sum he paid may sound like a lot of money, how much more, do you suppose it costs a poor man who, though paying pennies for it, but because of it, ends up contracting a sexually transmitted disease, such as HIV aids, from which he/she eventually dies? How much worse for the innocent spouse of such an individual, who gets to pay the same price? And what if, after paying all that much, you reach a dead-end, realizing it tastes salty, and not like the sweet vanilla ice cream you thought you were paying for?

  9. No way leave that taboo alone ,that is not our culture ,norms and . We’re already suffering too much AIDS and teen pregnancies as it is don’t put more fuel into this social fire.

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