Life is getting better for citizens of Zimbabwe, with inflation under control, food back in the shops, and a power-sharing government under control. Unfortunately, these improvements have done nothing for the youth of Zimbabwe who are still being abandoned by their birth mothers due to inability to care for them. A local orphanage in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, now has to turn down children who are brought to their door due to over whelming amounts of homeless children ranging from ages two to eleven years of old. A 2009 census showed that there were more than 700 children living on the streets of Harare. Many mothers get pregnant from sleeping with men on the streets for money to pay for food, and once they give birth to the child they throw them in dumpsters, toilets, they leave them on sidewalks, in alleys, on front doorsteps, and even in bushes. Some mothers feel guilty about their choice so they try to put the baby out of it's misery by throwing stones at it until it is no longer alive. With the government now under control, many would expect for this growing issue to be addressed and taken care of, unfortunately that is not the case in Harare, Zimbabwe. These children are deliberately being left in the streets by their birth mothers with no one to care for them the way they should be. Some mothers are as young as the age of 14 (a baby having a baby) and by the age of 17 they already have had their second child on the streets. This issue is a growing problem and sickening to hear being that their are children involved because it is not the child's fault for being born.
The link to the article is below...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9005000/9005372.stm
Unbelievable. We hear so often about the overwhelming sense of love when a mother first meets their newborn...but what these mothers are doing seems to be absent of love. Not to say that these women aren't in dire situations...but that is awful. Hopefully the new government will begin to realize that if children are the future, they cannot afford to be left on the streets to fend for themselves.
ReplyDeleteThat's heartbreaking. God bless Sister Mercy!
ReplyDeleteHere's a culture that is not so obsessed with reproduction, like the book states. Seems like this is the complete opposite, where life is not valued and not cared for.
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