The impact of parental migration on children in Dzivaresekwa 3.

Abstract

The study examined the impact of parental migration on the left behind children in Dzivaresekwa 3, a high-density suburb in Harare. The area has experienced parental migration due to socioeconomic hardships and political instability in the country. Twenty-five respondents from the sixty households identified with either one or both parents in Diaspora were selected as the sample of the study. Five out of the twenty-five were the caregiver of the children. The researcher used interviews and structured questionnaires as the data collection tools. The findings are grounded on the structured questionnaires directed to the children and interviews to both children and the caregivers. The study found that parental migration has positive and negative effects on children. Through migration of parents, children have accessed better education, better healthy services, foodstuffs, better housing among many other basic needs. The children's standards of living have improved. However, 76% of the respondents approved that parental migration has brought good than harm. The negatively affected children highlighted issues like household duties abuse, lack of proper housing, lack of money, not going to school, do not have enough food and psychologically affected. They are getting married, begging, stealing, and vending just to mention a few, as survival means. Large number of the children have affected negatively regardless of the positive effects obtained by other children from parental migration.