HON. DR. LABODE: I will start by putting a disclaimer that the report has no intention of discussing the age of consent to sex. There was a feeling that the petition was about the age of consent to sex and the age of consent to marriage – the disclaimer is that it was not about that. It was about youth or an adolescent accessing sexual reproductive health services.
I will touch on one of the challenges that we actually face but before I do that, I need to take all of us back to our Constitution. Section 76 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe reads: “Every citizen and permanent resident of Zimbabwe has a right to have access to basic healthcare services, including reproductive healthcare services”. We then go to the Public Health Act which says; “For the purpose of this section, informed consent to accessing health services means consent for the provision of specified health services given by a person with legal right to do so. How do we then offer services? We have decided that you must have a legal capacity and we know that legal capacity is 18 years of age.
How do we move to that when we have statistics like one in five teenagers are pregnant before the age of 18? That, Madam Speaker means that one in five young girls below the age of 18 are having sex, whether we like it or not. They are not being impregnated by demons, no. They are having sex and they are getting pregnant and one in three girls find themselves in a child marriage before the age of 18 and we sit here in this Parliament and say we have got a law that is against child marriages. They are getting married because they are pregnant. They are getting pregnant because they cannot access health services. The law says you cannot go and access services. The same Constitution turns and says at the age of 16, you can have sex. If I have sex, can I not get pregnant? I will get pregnant, I will get an STD, I will get HIV and if I reach that stage, I may have to make a decision. Do I keep this pregnancy and find somebody to marry me or do I keep this pregnancy and hope I will deliver safely which is not a guarantee or do I go for illegal abortion so that I remove that pregnancy.
Statistics show that we have very high rates of unsafe abortion and a very high incidence of HIV among the youths. Remember Madam Speaker that Zimbabwe is a signatory to the SDGs 90, 90, 90, meaning that by the time we reach 2030, we would have achieved certain goals. We had ensured that 95% of Zimbabweans know their status, 95% of Zimbabweans are on treatment and reduce mortality but the way we are heading because we want to pretend that these things are not happening, we have put ourselves in such a difficult situation. Here is one, there was mention of religious and cultural issues. It is because Zimbabweans, we are hypocrites. We are burying our heads in the sand, pretending that the current epidemic – it is as if an epidemic of teenage pregnancies is not a problem. It is a problem. It is destroying girls’ and boys’ lives because if a boy who is 15 impregnates somebody you must marry them. It is destroying their lives. We hide behind our cultural values, yet if we look back, our grandmothers got married when they were only 14, 15, 16 years of age. I do not know who is turning around saying it is a cultural taboo. It is not a cultural taboo. It became taboo now. When our grandparents were getting married they were young and so it is not taboo.
We also hide behind religion. I brought a Bible Madam Speaker to tell you that it is not true. In John 8, when the Pharisees brought a woman who was adulterous to him and said, ‘this woman is adulterous. According to Moses’ law, we must stone her. Jesus knelt down and was drawing something and then he said to them, those of you who have not sinned, throw the stone’. They all disappeared. He is a good and forgiving God. If there is a problem, we must deal with it. Let us not hide behind the Bible. In Hebrews, you find the first patriarchs. Do you know one of the first patriarchs is Rahab? A prostitute who served the people sent by Joshua to survey an area and she is in the Bible as the Patriarch of faith. Why did Jesus not judge her? Who are we? The very churches we are talking about girls are getting pregnant in the churches and we want to keep quiet. We want to pretend all of us to say this is not happening. This is happening. Children are having sex and we do not want to accuse anybody. We are saying let us help them, that is what we want to do.
He also brought out the issue of poverty. That over archs everything. Poverty has laid separation of parents to diaspora leaving children here on their own. That is where these boozy parties happen. You leave a child in a nice house in town and when weekend comes, the friends say let us come to your house and drink and they start the boozy party. The boozy party is about alcohol and sex. They have lost the understanding of sex. You have the media and a lot of children who have no parents and they open whatever.
They open an SABC and what do they see there? They see people shaking their backs and say John Vuli igedi nansi i-stoko and you expect children to be normal when they come out of there. They also continue doing the John vuli igedi. Zimbabwe has good policies. I told you we are hypocrites because while the law says you cannot access services without your parent if a child of 14 today in Zimbabwe went to the National Family Planning Council and said they wanted contraceptives, they question them. Are you married? If you say yes you are given. If you say no, they say are you having sex. If you say yes they give it to you. We like doing things behind the back.
We lack bold men and women who can stand up and say let us change the law. That we cannot do but we are doing these things. Go to National Aids Council, because of the challenge of young children becoming positive, they decided to put a policy which is contrary to the law. It says, ‘If the service provider should be the one to assess your maturity to be able to understand or to be tested…’. That maturity which is being used in family planning and other places should be what we have in our documents, in our Constitution and in our Act. Indeed the child decides to go and have sex on her own. She does not consult anybody. Because she decides, when she has got an STD, allow her to decide to go and get treatment or when she decides to have sex, allow her on her own to go and get prevention. We tend to feel that our children are too young and I understand that I am a grandmother and a mother. I understand exactly how people emotionally feel but let us face the fact and that we need to do.
Zimbabwe is also a signatory to a lot of international commitments for global solutions. We have the ICPD25. The ICPD25 is a document that is in the custody of the Minister of Finance. It was signed by Prof. Mtuli Ncube. This document is Zimbabwean specific commitment for a sexual reproductive health. It was presented in Nairobi on behalf of Zimbabwe. It was yours truly, Hon. Kwaramba and Hon. Priscilla who went with this document. The Minister could not go because it was the time of Budget. Ideally, other countries, the document was presented by Ministers and Heads of State. The document is very clear. It says, Zimbabwe shall endeavour to ensure that the adolescent access, comprehensive, information and quality timely service. That is what we said. We said this yet we knew we have this animal called Section 35 in the Public Health Act. We need to deal with that. We know what we need to do but we just do not have the guts or we are thinking that there is a sin somewhere. I do not think there is a sin, we are helping our children. If we present such documents and this document is what brings into the country the US$16 million that buys contraceptives for Zimbabweans. As a country, we do not put a cent. The US$16 million came from these commitments.
We had to defend this in Nairobi, to say that is what we are going to do. When they were asking us – how are you going to do it when you have got this “chimutemo,” we said ‘no, we will go and amend so that we get the money’. So, please let us start now doing the right things properly.
I wanted also just to refer to some documents. The Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council has a strategy. The strategy is very clear. It just says we shall offer. Meeting the sexual and reproductive health and rights needs of young people is a challenge in Zimbabwe. Despite several recent initiatives, youth-friendly reproductive and sexual services, the youths still cannot access the available services because of the law. If we actually pass a law that says anybody below the age of 18 can access health services, they will then go “kuzvikoro” to say once you start sex, you should do this. They cannot do it because what they are doing right now to give the youths some contraceptives is actually just trying to be humans to protect these youths.
There is this Zimbabwe National Family Concept Plan. I thought I should bring this to this House because it is important for us to understand that the $16 million we were getting is part of the 167 million pounds that Britain and other countries were putting into UNFPA to purchase contraceptives for African and Asian countries and probably Central America. Our share was $16 million. However, that $16 million was not calculated properly because one of the ingredient we need is a variable. You were basing your calculation of your needs on the people who are 18 years up to 50 years yet we have the 18 and below who are also consuming illegally from that load. So, it is important that we are helping the Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council which is a Government entity to calculate properly if they have the right law. It is what we intend to do because the British Government has decided to actually withdraw those donor funds.
It even becomes more important for us to be able to argue that we now have an increased number of people who will need contraceptives; please do not abandon us. To that effect, as a technical working group, we have written a letter of appeal to the UK Embassy here in Harare asking to say, we are in the process of amending Section 35 to include the youths. It will mean that we are not ready for the extra burden that is coming on our load. What I am saying is that there is a lot of work people are doing around this issue which we are not supporting.
Youths are considered as adolescents and Zimbabwe in the Global Fund which we submitted, it says we shall leave no one behind. We shall ensure that the youths get treatment. Can we get the treatment when Section 35 says no? You cannot. It is only those who have got parents who can take them to the private sector and can access the health of the people. We even developed as a nation, a National Adolescent and Youth Sexual and Reproductive. When we are out there, we shine “mufunge. Tinenge tine madocuments ese awa.” This document was developed with youths and the sector ministries. In this document, it is very clear that the youths shall be supported to access health services and health information.
We went on and did a fantastic thing by passing the law of comprehensive sexual education. Also, as part of that, we decided to retain pregnant girls in schools but what happens to a 13 year old, 14 year old or 15 year old who is pregnant who now needs to go and access health services? The clinic nurse will say, “uchiri mwana mudiki,” go and bring your parents. Maybe they are even in a boarding school or somewhere but if this girl is given that mandate or if we give them that authority, the girl will go and be seen by the nurse. I am standing here and saying, I strongly believe if we could amend Section 35 of the Public Health Act, we can reduce teenage pregnancies by 75%. They will automatically go. It is just that the adolescents cannot access these services.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MAVETERA): You are left with five minutes Hon. Dr. Labode.
HON. DR. LABODE: Thank you. As I stand here personally, I am asking the Minister of Health and Child Care to bring the Public Health Act and amend Section 35 to include a section that says, “any child who is below the age of 18 and is sexually active, when they get to a hospital and say I am sexually active, every other question should go.” That child should be given what she needs. Thank you very much.
