By Online Desk |  5 days ago | top

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has decried the impregnating of young girls and child marriages being reported in some parts of the country and has challenged traditional leaders to address the scourge.

Cases of child abuse have been on the increase recently with a Tsholotsho nine-year-old girl giving birth last November while another eight-year-old from Bindura also gave birth following a rape ordeal.

President Mnangagwa was speaking in Bulawayo while officially opening the national chief’s council yesterday.

Meanwhile the President said government will continue resuscitating chieftainships that were abolished by the Rhodesian settler regime and implored chiefs to foster peace and unity as the country heads towards the harmonised elections.

In 2019, Government under the Second Republic resuscitated the Bere chieftainship in Mashava, which was abolished almost a century ago by the Rhodesian settler regime.

President Mnangagwa said under the Second Republic, Government recognises the critical role played by traditional leaders in terms of preserving culture and identity.

“Under the Second Republic, we recognise that traditional leadership remains the guarantor of our culture against contamination by practices advanced by foreigners in our country.

“This is why we are fighting drug and substance abuse by our young generation, which is destroying our culture, and foreign countries will then take advantage of us because we would have destroyed our own identity,” he said.

“We are here today and owe this to our forefathers who preserved our culture and the way of life that has allowed us to survive up to today. It is critical for us, the current leaders, to carry this philosophy and respect traditional knowledge, wisdom and culture to preserve our identity as African people of this county.”