By Davies Mupenda

In the 1980’s and early 1990’s there were regular transfers of people working both in the public and private sectors. After two or three years, employees, especially heads of departments, would be moved from one station (usually a town) to another. That explains why most heads of government departments at that time worked in different parts of the country where they learnt other languages and cultures. James Banda was moved from Chingola to Solwezi where he learnt Kikaonde. Later he was transferred to Kabombo where he learnt Luchazi, Mbunda and other local languages before he again got transferred to Senanga where he learnt Silozi. Some people married from such areas and settled there after retirement. At that time it was easy for husbands and wives to move together because most wives were not working. Even where the wife was working she had to follow the husband to the districts where he moved. But then what would happen was that if, say, the husband was a bank manager and moved to another town, if the wife was head of a school, someone had to be moved in order to create room for the bank manager’s wife. Later this practice was stopped. If a married woman or man followed their spouse, they would get a place in the new district only if there was a vacancy. Some, for instance, would revert to the position of teacher rather than inconvenience the current head.

The other factor that came into play was gender campaign. Previously some married women would lose out on promotion, training, and other opportunities bearing in mind their marital status. Soon women started feeling that they could be considered for such opportunities without regard for their marital status and it was up to them to take it up or not. Actually some women and men saw a good opportunity to get some ‘breathing space’ away from a ‘troublesome spouse’ by accepting to be transferred to another town or district.

Then came the issue of job scarcity. Because of few jobs, people started accepting posts even away from towns or districts where their spouse is working from. Marital or family bonds are being superseded by the need to survive. Imagine a wife working in Ikelenge while the husband is working in Mpulungu. This has strained some marital or family relationship. Kukosafye.