BUBANZA January 17th (ABP) – The phenomenon of family abandonment during harvest periods is becoming alarming in these days in some localities of Bubanza province (northwestern Burundi) and is becoming increasingly a source conflict in households, according to communal administrative source.
In Bubanza commune, the communal administrator talks about the men who leave their wives in some provinces and communes and come to settle in Bubanza and Buvyuko zones where they remarry to other women. Afterwards, he added, these men end up giving up these second women for other localities or return home.
In Gihanga commune, the administrator mentions three men who have used cunning and who have convinced their wives to sell their lands in their provinces of origin and move to Gihanga commune. Currently, all three men have abandoned their limited families to settle in places not yet known, leaving their families in awful conditions.
That authority also mentions that men refuse to legalize their households to civil status. He also said that they have already identified 215 men and 26 women who came to settle in Gihanga commune saying that they came looking for work in the fields. Doubts hang over them because they came alone, claiming that they are married. One can suggest that they have abandoned their families. That phenomenon of family abandonment is also reported in Mpanda commune.
Faced with this social problem, the senior adviser of the governor of Bubanza province, Mr. Astère Nitunga, asks the local administrative officials to check in and register every visitor in their respective localities, as well as the object of their visits. He also asks them to remain vigilant in order to discourage and eradicate those family abandonments because, in his opinion, they risk causing insecurity in households and in those localities.
