Liuwa Member of Parliament Situmbeko Musokotwane has told the Zambian Parliament that Zambia army troops deployed in Kalabo were contributing to teen age pregnancies in the region, reports Lubasi and Sibeta Mundia of the Barotseland Post.
Dr. Musokotwane made the shocking allegation in the Zambian parliamentary session of Tuesday, February 16.
But the Zambian government has denied the allegation claiming that there was no proof of pregnancies linked to Zambian soldiers who are camped in Kalabo and many other parts of Barotseland.
Dr. Musokotwane, who reminded the Zambian government that they campaigned on the platform of restoring the 1964 Barotseland Agreement but once in power deployed the army against the people of Barotseland who asked them of their promise, has meanwhile appealed to the Zambian Ministry of General Education to liaise with the Ministry of Defence to ensure that the Zambian soldiers are moved out of the region.
But Zambian Deputy Minister for General Education David Mabumba said the government was not aware that soldiers were responsible for any pregnancies adding that the Zambian soldiers are in the region to maintain law and order.
Zambia has deployed a huge number of soldiers and police officers to Barotseland since 2010 and in 2012 there were reports, which were confirmed by the Zambian Parliament, of a high number of school girls having been impregnated by the Zambian police officers that were deployed to the area after the 2011 Zambia police instigated riots in Mungu.
It is this many thousands of undisciplined sex starved combined Zambian Security personnel from all over Zambia’s line of rail who many Barotse analysts blame for not only the high spate of teen pregnancies but also for the high prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS infections.
Zambia’s line of rail has the highest documented HIV / AIDS infections in all of Zambia. This is according to the National AIDS Council (NAC) report released by NAC Director of Programmes Dr. Harrod Witola on Monday 31 March 2014. In that report the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate was reported highest along the line of rail but Dr. Witola also wondered why Barotseland (Western province) exhibited abnormally high prevalence rates in spite of it being a rural set up.
Many Barotse analysts, however, have accused the many soldiers who are deployed all over Barotseland all year round since 2010, for a war that exists only in the imagination of the Lusaka Administration. These soldiers, it is argued, end up idling around Barotseland bored to the core, and with a lot of cash on hand, which they easily use to entice and lure unsuspecting young Lozi teenage girls who come from impoverished households.
