The Soccer War

THE CHILD-SUPPORT BILL IN THE TANGANYIKAN PARLIAMENT

The Tanganyika Standard of 21 December 1963 reported that ‘the discussion over the child-support bill that erupted in the last session of parliament was the stormiest debate in the nearly two years’ history of independent Tanganyika’s Legislative Chamber.’

Delegate Lucy Lameck, the Vice-Minister of Cooperatives, an activist known for her emancipationist stance and a proponent of European examples and models of behaviour for African women, introduced the government-sponsored bill on child support (the Affiliation Ordinance Amendment Bill of 1963). She began by saying that in a country like Tanganyika, which has embarked on the path of modern development, ‘newer and newer problems’ will continue to arise. ‘In earlier African society,’ said the delegate, ‘moral principles were not exposed to such great external pressures as today, and for this reason there was no need to create laws to protect the fate and upbringing of children born out of wedlock.’ Now, however, it is imperative to find ‘new remedies for the new problems affecting the population of urban centres.’

‘The child-support bill,’ Delegate Lameck stressed, ‘arose as a result of research into the situation of African women in the cities. It turned out that, in Dar es Salaam, 155 out of 340 working girls had from one to six illegitimate children. The average monthly income of these single mothers was only 168 shillings a month, and no more than eight of them received any help from the fathers of their children.’ The delegate also cited testimony from a school principal in Dar es Salaam, who stated that each month three or four girls dropped out of school as a result of pregnancy. This school taught girls between the ages of eleven and fifteen. The principal knew nothing about the ultimate fortunes of the drop-outs. ‘In this situation,’ concluded Delegate Lucy Lameck, ‘it is necessary to introduce a statute requiring the payment of child-support by the fathers of illegitimate children.’

The debate that, as the Tanganyika Standard reporter wrote, ‘destroyed the traditional seriousness of parliament’ now began.

Delegate P. Mbogo (Mpanda) expressed the opinion that the child-support bill would lead to a widespread increase in prostitution. ‘Girls are going to want to have as many illegitimate children as possible, because that way they will make money for cosmetics. Those girls will be like an underdeveloped country — they will have to be invested in.’

According to Delegate B. Akindu (Kigoma), the child-support bill would create ‘a special danger for wealthy people, such as for instance delegates to parliament, because pregnant girls will be able to falsely proclaim that the fathers of these illegitimate children are government ministers or delegates to parliament … These perfidious beings,’ the delegate said, ‘will sow neo-colonialist propaganda in the hope of extorting money from rich men.’ The delegate stated that many ‘TD men’ (the letters ‘TD’ appear on the license plates of cars belonging to high state officials) invite girls walking the streets into their cars. In such cases, it is up to the girl to refuse. ‘If you cannot restrain your desires, find yourself a husband and do so quickly,’ the delegate begged the girls of Tanganyika.

Delegate R. S. Wambura (Maswa) saw no need to introduce a child-support law since — in accordance with African tradition — legitimate and illegitimate children were treated the same way. ‘This law,’ the delegate stated, ‘can only incite women to make money from their charms. And besides,’ the delegate said, ‘our girls usually have many men, which is going to make it hard to decide who the father is.’ The speaker advanced another argument. ‘This bill runs against the laws of nature, because it is known that the unemployed are equally capable of making babies, and yet the unemployed have no money for paying child support.’

Delegate R. S. Wambura enjoyed the support of Delegate Chief A. S. Fundikira (Tabora): ‘The illegitimate child poses no problem in the African family; on the contrary, it is another pair of hands to work in the fields.’

The Minister of Justice, Delegate Sheik Armii Abedi, spoke in defence of the proposed government legislation. In the minister’s words, ‘If a man doesn’t want it, he can proceed in such a way that the woman with whom he is dealing will not become pregnant.’ The minister urged that the child-support law cover both working and unemployed men. ‘If the law does not apply to those without money, the unemployed are going to feel that the government has given them full freedom to produce children by the dozen. The production of children — that will be the work of the unemployed,’ stated the minister among applause and laughter from the delegates’ benches.

Delegate F. Mfundo (Handeni) mentioned that the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children was erected only under colonialism — traditional African law makes no distinction — and that therefore, a child-support law revealing a preference for illegitimate over legitimate children (the bill does not, after all, require the payment of support for legitimate children) was ‘a reflection of the colonial mentality’.

Urging acceptance of the bill, Delegate Lady Chesman (Iringa) challenged Delegate Mfundo. Thanks to this legislation, she said, financial responsibility for illegitimate children would rest on the men, freeing the state of the obligation to build orphanages and allowing it to assign more funds for the struggle against Tanganyika’s three principal foes: ignorance, poverty and disease.

The next speaker, Delegate A. S. Mtaki (Mpwapwa), stated in a lengthy presentation that the child-support law would have dreadful social consequences. First, it would cause a widespread increase in murder. ‘People who are forced to pay support for illegitimate children are going to murder them — murder costs nothing.’ Second, the rate of marital infidelity would rise: ‘As a result of this legislation, men will avoid contact with unmarried women, and instead seduce the wives of others.’ Third, the divorce rate would go up, ‘because, as the married man would have to pay support for an illegitimate child, his wife was bound to discover what occurred and demand a divorce, or perhaps even leave him at once.’ Summing up, Delegate Mtaki opined that ‘experts in this field, such as Karl Marx, teach us that prostitution is capitalism.’

Victor Mkello (Dar es Salaam) vigorously supported Delegate Mtaki, demanding that the government withdraw ‘this unfortunate legislation.’ In the delegate’s view, the law would force men to marry chance female acquaintances merely to avoid payment of child support. ‘Such marriages will never be happy.’ The government should take steps towards ‘making girls aware of how to avoid pregnancy.’

The Vice-President of Tanganyika, Delegate R. Kawawa, argued on behalf of the government and denied that the proposed legislation would lead to a growth in prostitution, since the growth of prostitution is already restrained by other laws. The Vice-President also criticized the idea of teaching women how to avoid pregnancy. ‘Such views are alien to our society and have been imported from outside,’ the Vice-President said. ‘Teaching women to avoid pregnancy would be nothing but an inducement for people to perform immoral acts.’

Delegate Bibi Mohammed (Rufiji), the director of the women’s division of the governing TANU party, defended the bill. ‘In some tribes,’ she said, ‘girls are locked up at home on attaining maturity, so that their parents can be sure they will not become pregnant. Yet men are like rats: they sneak into the house, and, as a result, the dumbfounded parents realize after a certain time that the girls, despite being kept under lock and key, are pregnant. Men never have enough: every one of them, even if he has conquered sixty women, will keep chasing and trying to get his hands on women whenever he has a chance.’ Delegate Bibi came out strongly against the speakers who had objected to the bill: ‘Delegates, as representatives of the entire Tanganyikan nation, ought to think about women as well as men, and they should not take advantage of the fact that they outnumber women in parliament to block legislation that would be of great benefit to women and men alike. Who of you, delegates, can say that he has a clean conscience? Many women come to me from all over and tell me that this or that delegate is the father of their child. I have promised these women that I will stand up in parliament and name names …’

At this point, Delegate Bibi’s speech was interrupted by Delegate J. Namfua, the Vice-Minister for Trade and Industry, who said that Delegate Bibi should either restrain herself or stop speaking altogether. In his opinion, she has ‘strayed too far from the issue at hand.’ Delegate Bibi agreed that in fact ‘it would be better for me to stop here, because I can see that too many delegates who are interested parties have very troubled expressions on their faces. I want to add one more thing,’ Delegate Bibi concluded, ‘which is that many girls die as the result of abortions. If we accept this legislation, nobody will need to have an abortion and we will save the lives of many young people.’

Delegate M. S. Madenge (Tabora) stated next that he would support the bill if it applied to schoolgirls, but if it was to be extended to girls from the street he would definitely oppose it.

A similar position was taken by Delegate H. S. Sarwatt (Mbulu) who took the position that the legislation would ‘lead to a decline in morality among women.’

Another Delegate, M. S. Haule (Kondoa), pointed out that according to the last census, there were 5.5 million women and four million men in Tanganyika. ‘This disproportion has arisen through the will of God,’ stated the speaker, ‘and we should draw the conclusion from this that God permits a man to have more than one woman. Therefore, this legislation intends to violate the natural order of things.’

The outcome of this debate was that ninety-five per cent of the Chamber came out strongly against the government child-support legislation. Although the Tanganyikan parliament consists exclusively of members of the ruling TANU party and had always given its unanimous approval of all bills placed before it by the Nyerere government, this was the first case in which virtually the entire Chamber had taken an anti-government stand. The government had to back down. Long procedural discussions between the government and parliament led to a compromise: a commission of five was established to make a fresh examination of the child-support bill.