Parents have been warned to desist from telling their children that marital property is theirs, to avoid tempting some of the offspring to seek early inheritance.

The remarks were made in Mbeya yesterday at a training workshop on marriage, women’s rights as well as inheritance issues for activists working with the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), as well as journalists and police officers from the Southern highlands.

Presenting a topic on inheritance issues, a legal expert from the human rights monitoring unit, Laetitia Petro, said in principle what couples acquired during their marriage is theirs and not the children’s. She wondered why people were fond of saying that it belongs to the children.

“Beware of saying to the young ones that what you have belongs to them, as some ambitious ones among them may end up sending you to an early grave,” warned Laetitia.

In another development, the activists have cautioned pro-choice activists who have been advocating legalization of abortion, saying the penal code prohibits it, besides its being against the African culture.

Rodrick Maro, a documentation and records officer at LHRC, sounded the alarm yesterday when discussing the Maputo Protocol, whose sections have stirred public debate due to their allowing abortion.

“Abortion is not only immoral but also against our constitution which promotes the right to life,” stressed Maro.

There have of late been debate in the country on whether or not abortion should be allowed, with pro-choice activists advocating its legalization, especially in case a woman has been raped.

LHRC executive director Dr. Helen Kijo Bisimba, who is also an ardent advocate of children’s rights, was recently quoted as saying that advocating women’s right meant supporting abortion.

“Abortion is immoral and there is no way I can support it as it amounts to killing an innocent creature. You may have been raped, but the embryo should in no way be condemned to pay for the sin it did not commit,” she said.