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Nelson Masukume
AT the zenith of colonial rule, the public service department of the day crafted numerous laws all directed at regulating the behaviour of the black employee who served under those various white led departments. By their very character, the regulations were crafted to control the conduct of black employees. Essentially the regulations were meant to depoliticise and subdue black workers who were gradually becoming agitated by the rise of black nationalism at the behest of some early black nationalists.
Freedom of association and assembly were stifled as the regulations discouraged black employee movements or unions aimed at attending to workers’ rights and welfare.
Then, most keen and ambitious young blacks serving under the white system suffered the brunt of their actions. Unionism and collective bargaining were weakened under repressive laws. The Law and Order Maintenance Act became very popular in dealing with leaders of unions such as the Rhodesian African Teachers Association.
Former Midlands Governor, Dr Cephas Msipa, is among the early teachers’ union leaders who suffered the wrath of colonial repressive laws.
The laws in the public service were very prohibitive and discouraging to any strike, mass action or collective bargaining.
Teachers’ union leaders like Dr Msipa at one time were put under house arrest and in squalid prisons for speaking about the rights of teachers working for the white government at that time. Reprisals were very harsh and many black unionists knew that their activities meant taking the risk.
Equally bad were laws on maternity leave. Falling pregnant while training as a teacher meant that one was to drop out from training. Leave on maternity also required that a woman was entitled only to three maternity leave paid for by the employer. Extra and subsequent births meant unpaid leave for the female teachers.
This meant that no woman would bear children as she wished.
The number of allowed pregnancies was restricted. All female teachers dreaded this regulation and made sure that they religiously stuck to it even if it violated their cultural norms that have no restriction on the number of children that one can bear.
Unfortunately this unjust statute on maternity leave remains in force. Women are only allowed to go for three maternity leaves. The fourth is unpaid for by the employer. Because of this regulation most female civil servants are hesitant to make children as they wish.
No one wants to take the risk of unpaid leave. It would appear most female civil servants make a maximum of three children. Clearly, this requirement violates their rights and privacy.
One wonders why some women’s rights organisations are silent on this practice.
Therefore, it was very befitting that the National Association of Secondary School Heads president, Mr Johnson Madhuku, recently called on the Government to scrap maternity regulations which restrict female teachers to only three paid deliveries saying this law was tantamount to gender discrimination.
Perhaps this should have been said by a woman.
“Three children is too small a number. Our culture encourages people to have as many children as they want,” bemoaned Mr Madhuku, while addressing secondary school heads at their annual conference held at the Elephant Hills Hotel in Victoria Falls recently.
In African culture, a woman is allowed to bear as many children as she pleases in consultation with her husband, of course. Children are a family heritage and national legacy. They symbolise family fertility and the power of procreation.
Family lineage is determined by the number of children in that family. Family history and the family tree all depend on the size of the family.
In African tradition, a family man deserves reference from the number of children he bears. Real men are considered to be those with many children and proponents of this view have harsh words for the law on only three paid deliveries for women in the civil service. The statute is not only a serious agent of gender discrimination but also a bare attack on African cultural practices on family concepts.
Working women must be given a choice to make as many children as they want. Restricting them to three paid deliveries serves to promote unjust practices in the civil service.
Online Reporter