…A Reader’s View
Dear Zambian Journalists,
What’s the real story about this three-month-old infant in Chongwe who is allegedly talking? Shouldn’t the real story and stronger angle be how the 15-year-old mother was defiled when she was probably 14 and may well be traumatized by the whole experience leading to child birth? Yes, defiled, because under the law the girl is underage and incapable of consent, making any sexual relations with her illegal and criminal.
You want a minor paraded before your cameras for people to applaud your “journalism” heroics when clearly you’ve left your journalistic ethics parked somewhere? Of course, she’s traumatized! Probably suffering from post-partum depression too. Which is not helped by all this nonsense.
Yesterday’s report by the state broadcaster, the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), was actually nauseating to say the least. The entitlement by the journalist was astonishing, especially since she’s a mother and a woman too. So what if the young girl refused to talk to you – she’s a minor for crying out loud!
As for the grandmother — small wonder that child is traumatized! One can only imagine the pain and anguish she’s put through daily. Where is your protection, grandma?
As I watched this excruciatingly painful report, I couldn’t help but wonder how the entire ZNBC can go cameras ablaze and allow themselves to be duped into village myths and rumors.
Let me go along with this for a bit.
If the child indeed does speak, the whole ZNBC and other news outlets reporting this have never thought about how this baby could be an extremely gifted specimen of the human species, a genius the world has never had the privilege of beholding before.
Why couldn’t the focus be on the marvelous uniqueness of this infant and how to ensure it’s given the best of life to nurture an amazing future that probably lies ahead rather than being about witchcraft or darkness or wrong and banishing people from villages?
I found the report all over the place. One moment, it talked about the allegedly talking, then shifted to the mother being cheeky and how she doesn’t listen to the grandmother. Suddenly, we are told how the baby is need of clothes.
Come on!
