Force Children To Care For Elders

MY CONTRIBUTION is to share my experience about caring for the elderly when I visited an Asian country a few months ago, where I learned that they have a system in place whereby an elderly person, a parent or any concerned individual can report a younger person or their children or grandchildren, especially those earning an income, for neglecting their parents/grandparents/elderly.

This is done more or less in the same fashion it is done here in Namibia when a parent (predominantly the father) of a child can be reported for failing to support his children.
Is it maybe not high time that Namibia considered introducing legislation compelling children and grandchildren to financially support their parents/grandparents, especially those who have brought them up and selflessly bankrolled the high cost of their education?
Unfortunately, when these young fellows finish their studies and secure good jobs, most of them forget the parents, who in most cases are based in the remote rural areas forever. They instead adopt a new comfortable urban lifestyle and the poor parents are left in the hands of charity organisations. Is this fair? Namibia please wake up!

Philip Mwandingi
Windhoek

---