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Absent Fathers And Child Maintenance Rights In The Copperbelt Province Of Zambia: The Dilemma Of A Postcolonial Bemba Matrilineal Practice, Mutale Mulenga-Kaunda

Zambia Social Science Journal

Being matrilineal and matrilocal, the Bemba people believe that “children belong to the mother”. This cultural belief and practice is so resilient that even in the event of divorce men have lost paternity rights to their children. Colonisation shifted Bemba women’s status as men were forced to migrate to work in the mines on the Copperbelt, leaving women to raise children as single mothers often without support from their absent husbands. Yet, even though Bemba people believe that children belong to the mother, the responsibility of raising children was traditionally shared with the father of the child. In postcolonial Zambia, …