THREE weeks ago, The Sunday Mail published a picture of girl-children ecstatically waving packets of panty pads and we were shocked.
They were as ecstatic as if they had just caught the bridal bouqet.
We wondered: “Are these Zimbabwe’s children?
“What kind of wine would they have given them, or beer or is it money? In this country, in our culture, certain things are not done.
“Hatisi varungu isu vanofumura choga-choga chakakosha.
“In this country children are very much protected, we do not allow anything to mar their innocence; they are allowed to grow to a certain stage of social maturity. When certain things have to be talked about, it is done by people who love the children and are from within the family so that the sacredness of the issues is protected and children are not exposed to rough elements when they are not yet capable of handling them.
“It cannot be just anybody from the street whose morality no-one is sure of.
“Zvokuzhangandira pazvinhu zvakashingiswa zvakadai hahwusi hunhu hwedu, kuzhangandira ikoku, kusazeza kuparidzira zvinhu zvounhukadzi, ndidzo mviro-mviro dzeufeve.
“Don’t school our children the wrong way, hatidi!”
Children are supposed to grow up to be self-reliant, to take care of themselves and others and not to be dependent.
If a woman cannot take care of her special needs, then there is a problem; she is not normal, her self-esteem is deeply flawed.
It is strange that parents can buy their children uniforms, shoes, school bags, pay their fees and their daily transport to and from school and yet supposedly fail to buy their girl-children a packet of sanitary pads which go for as little as one dollar for eight or 10.
What is the arithmetic of this?
They can feed their children, they can buy them soap and Vaseline; what then is the meaning of this?
What are these lies meant to achieve and what is the aim of these fabrications?
What is this drive meant to achieve?
If it were true that our girl-children are in such dire need, why not engage them in productive activities to raise funds for their needs instead of enslaving them to beg for the rest of their lives.
This dependency ideology will never help Zimbabwe, but serves to entrench her children in the mentality sown by the colonisers where the African is supposed to be an infant entirely dependent on the white ‘master’ for everything, including the naming of their children.
There are so many income-generating activities that can be run at a school for children to raise money for fees, uniforms, books and trips. Why not provide seed money to start a school bakery which can produce bread and other snacks school children can buy for lunch or tea-time?
This is not done because it would expose the lie that has been woven for sinister purposes; that the Zimbabwean parents cannot buy panty pads for their daughters.
They can run a school garden which can sell produce to the local community or they can keep chickens for meat and/or eggs.
The list is endless.
Being a girl-child is not synonymous with being handicapped.
They are the mothers of tomorrow and need to be properly cultured if we are to have a nation to be proud of tomorrow.
Our mothers, that is their grandmothers, never knew what it is to beg. They worked with their hands; in the summer they planted the fields, and in between they made reed mats, baskets, clay pots, raised chickens, goats and sometimes herded cattle, at the same time raising big families.
Theirs was a culture of work, they knew no idle moment and their households were well taken care of.
Long after the harvest, throughout the winter, the autumn and spring, their families were well catered for, they always had something to keep the family going no matter the season.
They did not depend on anyone employing them, their hands, their feet and their brains created the wealth that sustained the families and this is a great achievement.
This is the culture of our people; they work with their own hands so that the granaries overflow with groundnuts, maize, rapoko, finger-millet, melons, pumpkins, the sacks are full of dried meat, dried mushroom and vegetables.
They worked with their hands and produced their means of livelihood. This was, and still is, their economy that sustains life, that raises children and that keeps Zimbabwe going.
This crop of girl-children which is being groomed to beg, even for such special care needs is being tailored to make Zimbabwe fail.
Who will take care of Zimbabwe if they succeed in destroying its future mothers?
That is not our culture, that is not our way of life.
Why foist this on us?
In this land we are our own liberators as was our motto during the liberation struggle.
But how can we be our own liberators if we can’t independently supply our children with sanitary pads as is claimed.
How can we sing our song in a strange land and how can our children sing their song in a strange land?
Can a mother who depends on others for her sanitary pads take care of her children; feed her children?
This is what our girl-children are being trained to become.
How will they know they must fight and fend for themselves?
Tomorrow you will defend that they should be in the street as prostitutes because they need this and that.
This is not our culture.
In our Zimbabwe, people have to work for their livelihoods; we are not a people raised to depend on others.
We can take care of ourselves; we have the means and the willpower.
Zimbabwe’s women have always done their part to build this great nation called Zimbabwe from the day of Mbuya Nehanda Nyakasikana, to all those girls who struggled for Zimbabwe as combatants or zvimbwidos.
They were never far behind their mothers, but fought for Zimbabwe at home and at the rear and triumphed.
This is a legacy to be proud of, the legacy of Zimbabwe’s girl-child which others inimical to our development and to our destiny are desperate to eradicate.