by Cllr Yagyah Adams, Cape Muslim Congress.
Nobody is perfect and we all need help to improve ourselves. Thus, we must recognise our faults and seek the required help.
However, when folk do not believe that what they are doing is wrong or illogical, then it presents a different problem as growing older does not also suggest growing wiser.
What am I talking about?
In a written response to questions in Parliament, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga in June this year said 90 037 girls aged from 10 to 19 gave birth between April 2021 and March 2022.
Teen pregnancy numbers are increasing and costing taxpayers a fortune in overall health care and other social costs such as housing. We don’t even have electricity and water for paying customers.
As a nation that suffered great historical injustice, starting with slavery, colonialism and apartheid, we cannot allow ourselves to be ruined by the reckless behaviour of those who refuse to behave.
We cannot continue talking about the same things without actions that have measurable outcomes.
For example, any adult who impregnates a teen under 16 years must receive sanction as a 16-year-old cannot be expected to make an informed decision. That’s why they cannot vote or drive or drink alcohol, etc.
Since we already have the biggest wealth gap in the world, I propose that both males and females who cannot financially sustain a child “be temporarily sterilised”.
A pregnant teen from a middle, upper-class milieu may enjoy the protection of the family. This saves the taxpayer. Everyone else must be sterilised before accessing state welfare.
It is irrational for taxpayers to give to those who lack the ability to make logical decisions as the reckless will continue to breed and burden the collective social system which is already inadequate and unable to sustain our population.
Sterilisation is a logical exchange to access sponsored education, housing and medical attention, etc, after the first-born and until such time when the couple can care for themselves. Where is the logic in allowing the poor to breed more poverty?
The forced sterilisation will compel the affected to educate and find the necessary assistance instead of continuing with more destructive behaviour.
Stupid people admire the success of other nations without asking what sacrifice was required.
The China “one-child policy” lifted 400 million people from the working into the middle class.
There is no such thing as “African solutions for African problems”. Solutions are logical and rational compared to most problems that result from illogical and irrational behaviour. We cannot build a prosperous nation with 40% unemployment and 90 000 pregnant teens per annum, it is impossible.
* Cllr Yagyah Adams, Cape Muslim Congress.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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