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Globalisation and the African Family
‘Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife and they become one flesh.’ Genesis 2:24. God’s intention was that a man and his wife would live together physically, helping each other. One ‘flesh’ does not tear apart and survive!
In the modern world traditional gender defined roles are changing. Women have become heads of families and career women. Economic pressures sent Zimbabwean women frequently to other countries such as South Africa, Botswana and Zambia.
To sustain themselves and keep themselves ‘safe’ during these travels, some women were forced to engage in relationships with local men. The implications for families were devastating: HIV/AIDS, divorce and separations and suffering for the children.
By the end of the 1990s, African economies could no longer cope with the needs of their populations for reasons such as bad governance and natural and man-made disasters. Men, women and children left their countries in greater numbers to eke out a living and support their families. The one ‘flesh’ that God intended at Creation had begun to tear apart. The family as the Africans knew it had changed.
Many people from Africa living in the UK have left very young babies back home to be brought up by friends and relatives while they work overseas. Many women from my country have not seen their children for many years. To compensate for their absence, parents overseas buy expensive clothes and toys for their children - a poor substitute for parental presence and support. Relatives who act as guardians for these children often do a very good job but cases of abuse/ill treatment of these children have been reported.
Those who have claimed asylum have had to forgo attending funerals or even weddings of their children back home because they cannot return. Erstwhile respectable women have turned to dubious means of making money due to the harshness of life in an environment where support systems do not exist.
Many families have broken up because of the work schedule here in the UK, where husband and wife barely meet and very young children have to be at the child minder’s to allow both parents to work and study. African children brought up this way have a different culture to that of their parents, resulting in a lot of friction between the two generations. Most immigrants from Africa make many sacrifices with the hope of resuming proper family life when they return home.
The Church needs to carry out research into the issues facing families and individuals working away from their homelands and find ways to address these. That way it may be possible to support families to remain together and the African child to retain his ‘African’ values and traditions while making a meaningful contribution in the multicultural society where they live.
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