The preposterous utterances by EFF leader Julius Malema for young people to have more babies cannot be left unchallenged.
While on the campaign trail in Emalahleni, Mpumalanga, Malema made the call for young people to have as many as 10 children because the EFF government would feed them and pay fees for their basic education and university fees.
He reportedly said: “The grandfathers and grandmothers will tell you they had as many as 10 children per couple without Sassa. You who have Sassa are boring because you are lazy to reproduce. You have three or four children at the most.”
These utterances could have been laughed off as the rantings of a village clown if they were not serious. That the leader of the third-largest political party in SA can utter such utter drivel speaks volumes about the state of our politics.
It was not the first time the mercurial Malema had made such an outrageous call. In 2016, while on the campaign trail for the local government elections in Soweto, he expressed similar sentiments when he encouraged the youth to give birth and expand because if they did not make children we were going to disappear as a black nation.
“To make children is a revolutionary duty because children represent reproduction of society”, he thundered. Considering the rampant scourge of teenage pregnancy afflicting our schools and society, Malema’s rants assume an even more pernicious dimension. His call is an explicit endorsement of teenage pregnancy.
Exposing his duplicity, Malema made another call where he claimed the youth should be given an education, not a grant. In the same vein, he called for Sassa beneficiaries to be exempted from paying for water and electricity because they were poor. One never knows where Malema is concerned.
The subject of teenage pregnancy and the education of girls is a very sensitive one because falling pregnant while at school minimises the chances of girls to complete their education and fulfill their aspirations. They have to drop out of school to look after the children. To call for girls to make as many as 10 children and attend school at the same time represents the height of folly.
Malema’s antiquated views are akin to Afghani Islamic fundamentalist political movement, Taliban, with its oppressive rule of excluding women and girls from schools and work across the country. The UN recently indicated that the Taliban will “soon” be announcing a framework that allows girls to attend school in Afghanistan. Millions of girls of secondary school age have missed out on education for 27 consecutive days, according to the UN.
Malema needs schooling on the benefits of the education of girls and the barriers to such. Firstly, educating both boys and girls can increase productivity and contribute to economic growth. According to an International Labour Organisation report: “Educating girls has proven to be one of the most important ways of breaking poverty cycles and is likely to have significant impacts on access to formal jobs in the longer term.”
This noble goal can be severely impacted if girls were to heed Malema’s advice to make 10 babies. There are other benefits which include the fact that educated women have fewer pregnancies and are also less likely to become pregnant as teenagers. Education will also help women to gain the skills needed to take on leadership roles at local, provincial and national levels.
It is for this reason that the world has committed to progress through the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with Goal 4 aiming to “ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education”. Goal 5 is focused on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. Encouraging girls to fall pregnant and make as many as 10 children is disempowering and seeks to take the struggle for women emancipation backwards.
One wonders what the women in the EFF think about their CIC’s utterances. Their silence signals the endorsement or acquiescence with his statements. Voting for the EFF is tantamount to voting for the continued oppression and disregard of women.
Addressing the UN General Assembly in 2012, former US president Barack Obama opined: “The future must not belong to those who bully women. It must be shaped by girls who go to school and those who stand for a world where our daughters can live their dreams just like our sons.”
It seems that the loose canon that is Malema is hell-bent on making the spewing of outrageous statements his stock in trade. His hollow rhetoric can only perpetuate a cycle of poverty. Malema will be well-served to take note of the words of Sanco spokesperson, Jabu Mahlangu, when he berated him for his 2016 mindless utterances, “The myopic pronouncement must be rejected with the contempt it deserves. Malema’s ignorance regarding the importance of family planning and the huge rewards it has towards poverty reduction and economic development is cause for concern.”
I could not agree more. Malema is an artist in absurdity who is a threat to our country’s fight against poverty, unemployment, inequality and other scourges such as crime and GBV.
SA girls should focus on their education and not listen to the dangerous madman that is Malema.
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