Himba women, kids left vulnerable by culture clash

ONDOOZU MERJA IILEKA

Deep cultural beliefs, including around wife beating and choosing family life above formal education, has left Himba women and children vulnerable.
For most of them living in the Kunene Region, a lack of access to information and the continued dependency on their male counterparts is resulting in their basic rights being violated.
Uakuatuanaua Mutambo, a 19-year-old single mother to a two-month-old baby, has never attended school and although considered a young mom in the outside world, is one of a few Himba women that has had her first baby relatively late in life.
According to statistic collected in 2008 in the Kunene Region, 25% of women aged between 15 and 19 have given birth, with 54% of pregnant women delivering their babies at home.
Mutambo's baby, whose father disappeared before she was born, has been named Kenamuaangu - meaning 'the one without a sibling' - until her grandparents give her an official name, as is the traditional practice.
This cultural belief that a child born out of wedlock belongs to the grandparents and not the mother has, however, resulted in only 56% of births of children under the age of five being registered.
Figures further indicate that 40% of children under 18 do not live with their biological parents.
Despite children often being raised without their parents, statistics collected in 2009 show that only 6% of the Kunene Region's 115 687 children received child welfare grants at the time.
Mutambo, like many young women her age from the Himba tribe, has never been taught the importance of school, with more emphasis being placed on family life.
Data collected on education in the Kunene Region shows that 55% of females and 58% of males aged 7 between 13 years attend primary school.
Fewer males (22%) than females (29%) aged 14 to 18 years, however, attend secondary school, mainly due to them staying at home to herd cattle among a population dependent on subsistence farming and animal husbandry.
Health Extension Worker (HEW), Sunday Ipinge, who works with Himba communities in six remote villages, told Namibian Sun that although traditional leaders have been receptive of the Health Extension Programme (HEP), cultural beliefs often makes their jobs difficult
"Cultural practices are very common here. Even if someone shows signs of cholera in their stool, the communities would rather believe its witchcraft," said Ipinge.
Chief Health Programme Administrator in the Kunene Region, Jogbeth Karutjaiva, also admitted that the semi-nomadic nature of communities pose a big challenge to the HEP.
"Some of the cultural issues we experience is that if the husband is not around, or the head of the house, there is no one available to give authority for a mother to take her sick child to a clinic or hospital," said Karutjaiva.
Statistics also indicate that although not a predominately violent people, over 40% of the population in Kunene - 42% males and 43% females - believe wife beating is acceptable.