It should be restricted to resolve family issues privately in line with other regulations on data privacy and protection and safeguarding the best interests of children. The law should ban and criminalise televised or any other public announcements or shows of real-life DNA test results.
DNA testing and public announcement / vulnerability, misfortunes, misery and poverty to profiteering businesses as online content. It leaves affected children and families publicly humiliated and contributes to mental health challenges.
It also reproduces stereotypical notions that stigmatise women and men, perpetuating technologically facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). Above all, it maligns the integrity of scientific solutions such as DNA testing to real-life family and societal challenges.
DNA testing in Zimbabwe: When science meets harmful cultural practices
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DNA testing is a scientific method that is used to establish the percentage of a child’s match to their biological bloodline. It is also used in medical and health diagnosis and for legal and forensics purposes, including in the prosecution of cases of sexual and gender-based violencepresent-day Zimbabwe, DNA testing has become a popular phenomenon used particularly for paternal assessment reasons, accounting for 82,07% of DNA testing in a study conducted by Nature Health. The same study states that paternity tests are mostly requested in private laboratories and often in the absence of the mother.
Contextualising the high uptake of DNA paternal testing in Zimbabwe needs to be understood within the country’s socio-cultural contexts. Locating paternal contestation within the socio-cultural context shows that it is intricately linked with historical, harmful cultural practices and stereotypes that disproportionately affect women.
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This situates the problem in societal practices that not only harm women but also children, men, and families. It draws attention to the urgent need for policy reform to minimise the impact of TFGBV that televised DNA shows have on affected families and society.
Biological parental contestation is not a new phenomenon in Zimbabwean society. Various harmful patriarchal social norms and practices have historically been established, widely accepted and continue to be practised by many families across classes in present-day Zimbabwe.
This is despite decades of work by women’s movements to combat harmful cultural practices that undermine gender equality and perpetuate gender-based violence. One of the patriarchal practices directly related to paternal contestation is kupindirwa mumba. This is a practice that promoted step-fathering or step-mothering, knowingly and unknowingly.Kupindirwa mumba was used when couples struggled/delayed having children and was done for kuchengetedza imba. Kuchengetedza imba is a Shona phrase that loosely translates to marriage (union) preservation. To preserve marriages, kupindirwa mumba was promoted by having a few elderly and respected family members to secretly arrange that a brother or nephew of the husband gets sexual with their sister-in-law to help the couple to have a child(ren). If the challenge persisted, the husband was encouraged to marry another wife ‘to give him an heir’.
Although having children remains a decision for couples, Zimbabwean patriarchal society holds various stereotypical misconceptions about not having children. Couples are often stigmatised, which can lead to the breakdown of unions.
