05 Oct 2015

There is need to develop a national policy for the family, Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Ms Botlogile Tshireletso has said.

Briefing North West District councillors about the draft report on the development of a family policy, she said families had been affected by emerging issues that impacted on the family set up.

She said the policy would act as a framework within which a comprehensive approach to social development could be implemented adding that it would also examine laws, policies and acts so that there would be synergy regarding targeted programmes aimed at empowering families.

She said the challenges included environmental issues such as global warming, which negatively affected the livelihoods of families.

Other challenges were economic issues caused by an attempt to meet the needs of the family members; cultural issues such as cohabitation, extra marital affairs and multi concurrent partners; migration patterns where other family members migrated to urban areas.

She said such factors compounded the existence of dysfunctional families and the high rate of social ills.

Ms Tshireletso explained that family played a vital role in political, cultural and socio-economic development. She said in the past, families had solid foundations and an extended family played a big role in the upbringing of children but today things have changed.

“There was team spirit, love by then amongst the family and no child was labeled lesiela as the uncles and the aunts took the responsibility to look after such child”, she added.

The assistant minister said as leaders there is need to trace their roots and find out what went wrong, identify the gaps and come up with solutions to enhance a family set up. Ms Tshireletso said a family is a set up where people should live happily with peace but noted that family breaks up is a concern. 

She said some parents fail their children because of alcohol consumption hence high number of children living in place of safety or institution which denies them to enjoy the family and parental love and guidance.

She revealed that the mentioned challenges also lead to high rates of divorce, traumatized children caused by dysfunctional families and a lot of dependency on government grants.

For their part, some councillors said the policy is mostly needed to guide the development of a family. They said some young people are quick to marry and yet they are ready to lead a family hence end up in divorce.

Cllr Dikoro Ngunga said in the past, families were upholding to tradition and culture hence they were strong. He said today families are breaking up because of negligence of their culture and social values.

Cllr Mpoke Karapo said policies encourage cohabitation and children born out of wed-lock but in other countries that is a taboo. He calls for stiff measure in place which could prevent cohabitation and children born out of wed-lock. Ends