By Kennedy Mupomba | The recent death of a 14-year-old child In Zimbabwe while giving birth has been a topical matter globally. Quite rightfully, the world was shocked and horrified by the child’s death and several platforms lambasted the parents, the church practice and the police. Glaringly, it took the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare a long time to publicly condemn the religious practice.

It is from my professional opinion as a social worker in the UK that I critique social work practice in Zimbabwe towards safeguarding children. I conclude this paper by arguing that the laws, policies and the social work practice is not fit for purpose and need urgent revamp.
The Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare lauds it self as ‘promoting rights of children through the provision of social protection services for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups’. The Government of Zimbabwe enacted the Social Workers Act 27:21 in 2001 and adopted a contextual definition of social work. Section 4 (2) of the Act defines social work as a:

‘profession that promotes the welfare of human beings and the betterment of human society through the development and systematic application of scientific knowledge of human and societal activities and social services. Professional social workers aim to satisfy the needs and aspirations of individuals and groups at national and international level, while constantly bearing in mind the need for promoting social policy. Their techniques include psychotherapeutic case-work, social-dynamic group-work and planned community intervention’.

Further, the Act defines a social worker as:
‘a person who as his or her profession, assesses, diagnoses, treats and evaluates individual, interpersonal or societal problems through the use of social work knowledge, skills, psychotherapeutic case work, socio-dynamic group work, planned community interventions and strategies to assist individuals, families, groups of persons, organisations and communities to achieve optimum psychosocial and social functioning’.

I am indebted to Jacob Rugare Mugumbate and Phillip Manyanye Bohwasi who provided through their ‘Historical development of social services and social work in Zimbabwe’, a 2021 publication insight into the subject matter of this paper. They argued that social services and social work developed through five stages in the following order: customary indigenous phase, missionary phase (1500 to 1890), colonial phase (1890-1980), Independence phase (from 1980 to 2002) and indigenous-developmental phase (2002 to present day).

Without getting bogged into the theories they cited, it is perhaps best to highlight their view that ‘in the beginning, social services were governed by indigenous customs and they were offered in the community’ and pertinently ‘this ensured that everyone (my emphasis) had access to forms of helping’. They concluded that ‘it is safe to say that Zimbabwean social work is going back where it started, and where it should be’. It is important to point out that in the first customary phase, social services were provided according to custom and were indigenous with no foreign influence. Described as vabatsiri (helpers) the ‘social worker’, he /she would immerse himself/herself in the presenting problem and work largely as a community worker and by living with the people, he/she understood problems better.

Globally, there is a clarion call as did the authors rightfully point out for social workers to continuously update their knowledge and skills and to contribute to the production as well as dissemination of literature (Continuous Professional Development). They also suggested that it would ‘be important to have at least 75% local content in terms of the literature used by students, lecturers, practitioners, clients and researchers’. They concluded that it is time that ‘Zimbabwe leads in the expansion and strengthening of social work in Africa’. In short, the authors are arguing that Zimbabwe’ social services and social workers are doing very well. Further they are arguing that practitioners should partially close their eyes and ears to the developments in social work knowledge worldwide and rely on its 75% local content. I strongly disagree with such thoughts as explored below.

It is currently confusing as to who really died, the bottom line though is that it was a teenager who died while giving birth. It is not news to any Zimbabwean that the well -being of teenagers has largely been neglected before and after independence. Stories of street kids, of children abusing drugs and substances are very common in the media. In his thesis, Dr Ian Ndlovu also provided insight into the plight of teenagers with no effective social service support. Allegations have been made in the past of the government rounding up children from the streets and despatching them away from the sight of foreign dignitaries.

It is interesting to note that the definition of social work clearly state that vulnerable persons should be ‘helped’, yet the issues of child marriages within and outside churches has dragged on from the pre-independence era. This suggest to me that social services and social workers have been inept in safeguarding these children. So, for the authors to suggest that Zimbabwe should take lead and be emulated in Africa is rather, in my view laughable and mind stretching to the extreme. At most, social services merely reacts when a hue and cry emerge from the social media. For example, social workers rushed to pick up children in Mashonaland West from a woman who alleged she was after looking them as they were orphans. Is this not the ‘vabatsi’ of the olden days ‘helping’ out? In any event, when citizens take it upon themselves to support children, this suggests in my professional opinion that social services and the vabatsiri are tottering.

Turning to the issue that practice should be influenced by 75% of indigenous research, I will not however be drawn to engage in the debate about the 75% indigenous content policy in all sectors of Zimbabwe. Positively, the new government has since sought to distance itself from that failed idea. The idea of restricting practice to local research seem ill thought as outlined below.
The deceased was a teenager and considerable research has shown that young people are impacted by the different relationships they form away from home such as at school and parents and carers have little influence over these contexts. There has therefore arisen worldwide, contextual safeguarding in which for example, social services, social workers, child protection systems and wider safeguarding partnerships engage with persons and sectors who have influence over/within extra-familial contexts. For, example, it is perhaps common in Zimbabwe for some lodges to turn a blind eye to children who are brought onto their properties for sexual purposes.

Within the UK and particularly in London, services such taxis and hotels are involved in policies to stop children being sexually exploited. As I will point out further below, it seems there is a disjoined approach by policy makers towards ending child marriages.
While I am not suggesting that UK social services and social workers are on top of the game with regard to contextual safeguarding, we do learn from research from other countries to improve our practice. So, it is my professional opinion, regrettable for any academic to say Zimbabwean social workers should open their eyes and hear up to 25% of non-indigenous research and cling to ideas that have failed to protect children. While the authors do not give insight into how 25% will be measured, it is in my professional opinion laughable that by constraining its practice to 75% local research content, Zimbabwe will take lead in ‘the expansion and strengthening of social work in Africa’.

There are several institutions providing social work education and while it is commendable that many students are seeking to lean and gain knowledge towards supporting families, questions have to raised about the impact of them relying on the Zimbabwe’s 75% local knowledge. It is no secret that many social workers seek to practice abroad and the UK is one of the desired destinations. I have been involved in interviewing candidates from Zimbabwe who have several years of experience and strikingly those that failed struggled to articulate on the tools they use in finding the wishes, views and feelings of children. Obviously, they do use direct work tools when working with children but is it because they are not exposed to other worldwide direct work tools? Recent research has also shown that foreign social workers including Zimbabweans, often struggle with Uk practice. While they could several reasons for this, for the authors to suggest limiting practitioners’ knowledge to local research, is without merit.
I now turn to the issue of policy regarding child marriages. The Minister of Justice, Ziyambi Ziyambi recently said that:
‘what we want to do…is not only about criminalising but also engaging our communities so that our communities will appreciate that certain practices are now outdated which is why the Ministry of Woman’s Affairs is saying that they are going to do (my emphasis).

While this is commendable, it also raises questions about why this has not been happening and glaringly the very ministry in charge of safeguarding children has not publicly to my knowledge given a statement regarding how it will end child marriages. There seem to be no contextual safeguarding.
As an update of police investigations, the alleged deceased’s husband was brought before the Mutare magistrates courts. I read with interest that the prosecutors have preferred murder and having sexual intercourse with a minor charges against the man. As the matter is before the courts, I will not dwell on the charge of murder and I wish my former learned friends, good luck in proving their case. However, policy makers need to craft more legislation that strike at the very heart of this outdated behaviour of child marriages as the current legislation is not working.
In conclusion, the issue of child marriages within and outside churches has been ongoing for decades and the current laws, policies and social work practice are not fit for purpose and need urgent restructuring.

Kennedy Mupomba is a practicing social work in England and holds bachelor degrees in Applied Community Studies, Law and masters degrees in Social Policy and Social Work. He is reachable at [email protected].