President Jacob Zuma has reiterated that teenage mothers should be separated from their babies until they have completed their schooling, in an address in Parliament several years after he first caused outrage with the suggestion.
“They must be taken and be forced to go to school, far away,” he said in his response on Tuesday to the debate on his address to traditional leaders.
“They must be educated by government until they are empowered and they can take care of their kids, take them to Robben Island or any other island, sit there, study until they are qualified to come back and work to look after their kids.”
Zuma acknowledged that when he first expressed the view during his 2009 election campaign, it stirred controversy and was likely to do so again but said allowing teenage mothers to leave school was proving an untenable burden on society and the state’s welfare bill.
