Kontakt 2007, 9(2):366-372 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2007.056

Situation of families in ZambiaHealth and Social Sciences

Veronika Šimečková¹, Radka Rejhová²

¹ Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, speciální a sociální pedagogika

² Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, katedra supervize a odborné praxe

The contribution presented here describes the situation of families in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Zambia. Zambia is one of most problematic countries, which faces many social as well as health problems. The contribution brings experience from the life of its inhabitants - structure of families, role of the mother, father and grandparents.
The work defines the term street kids in accordance with the special literature to improve the comprehensibility for the reader. The problem of street kids in Zambia occupies the first position in the field of interest of humanitarian institutions and their help. The contribution defines and presents demographic and statistical data on the inhabitants in general and mentions certain accurate numbers as directly determined in Zambia. Demographic data are associated with problems corresponding with the situation of families and further parameters of the family and social politics in Zambia, such as high mortality, morbidity and illiteracy.
The family is considered here as a social unit, which is essentially missing in Zambia and thus, the whole family system and structure of inhabitants is impaired.
The contribution also points out problems of the HIV/AIDS, which disturbs the family unit to the most considerable extent with respect to a high mortality of mothers, fathers and in worst cases of both parents.
Certain considerable differences are defined in the motherhood and upbringing of children and in the general familial and traditional coexistence, such as carrying of children in scarf or role of the mother in upbringing. The fact is particularly shown that in Zambia, there is no maternity leave. By way of illustration, a system of the marriage and coexistence of two persons as a basis of the family is described and supplemented by historical rules.
The contribution mainly emphasizes the coexistence of brothers and sisters: how the children are able to take care of their small brothers and sisters. The role of the mother is frequently taken by an older daughter or son, who carries their younger sister or brother everywhere, which enhances their emotional bonds.
All these facts come from far history of local ceremonies, rituals and superstitions.
At the end of our contribution, we also mention a further frequent problem, which is the poor education of inhabitants that also strongly hits the process of forming families and of the child development. This involves a problem that the parents cannot realize the consequence of having many children in the family. The parents, due to their poverty, cannot feed and bring up the children in agreement with requirements for their healthy and quality development.
We also point out the problem of early conception and mainly the fact that the girls are sometimes forced to live the school, to avoid the outrage and suggestion of bad live style. The authors realize that this gesture of the society does not solve the problem and they criticize this fact.

Keywords: Family; children; poverty; upbringing

Received: October 15, 2007; Accepted: November 15, 2007; Published: December 21, 2007  Show citation