Tanzanian parliament on Wednesday was turned into a comedy arena after a Tanzanian Member of Parliament raised concern over men sucking breast milk.
Jacqueline Msongozi, the Special seat parliamentarian, told the House that she had gotten wind of information that men are breastfeeding. According to the legislature, the effect is that more children are not getting enough food.
“This has been witnessed across different regions. I ask the ministry to do research.
These grown-up men are feasting on what belongs to their children,” said Ms. Msongozi.
“They suck the milk of their breastfeeding wives instead of the baby suckling to get necessary nutritional elements.”
The lawmaker asked the government to roll out a campaign to educate men on the detrimental effect the lack of milk would be on babies.
“I ask the ministry to roll out plans and provide education thoroughly so that these fathers do not violate the rights of their children,” she said.
Men feeding on their partners’ breast milk is not uncommon in the country. It is a practice that is also done in some parts of Uganda.
In 2018, Uganda’s minister of state for health, Sarah Opendi, asked the government to intervene in a similar outburst.
A 2020 study by Kyambogo University in Kampala and Britain’s University of Kent showed that breastfeeding’ men often suckled before a child is fed, usually once a day or more, and for about an hour.
The research found that breast milk made the consumer have more energy. “When breastfeeding, I feel like I’m being looked after like a child, and this becomes addictive. I feel like a prince,” a respondent said.
It also emerged that the practice was mostly coerced, with the women expressing fear that their husbands might leave them if they didn’t let them suckle, or worse even, beat them.
