Recently a prominent gay activist, a certain Mr David Kato of Uganda was found bludgeoned to death, a few months after his picture was featured in an anti-gay newspaper with the words “Hang them”.
This is an anti-gay column, which lacks both the picture of a local gay couple as well as the words “Hang them!” I am against homosexuality, as well as against the legalization of prostitution. I however don’t militate for the lynching or stoning of homosexuals and prostitutes. My position on these matters is clear. It is not because of lack of international exposure. I have lived abroad and I have witnessed the disgust of men kissing in the streets of Brighton or fondling in the London tube. On the issue of homosexuality and the legalization of prostitution, I am clear. I am opposed to two totally. You may call me conservative, you are probably right ÔÇô I fight for the conservation of certain values and morals which I feel they are offended by both the legalization of prostitution and homosexuality.
BONELA’s campaign on these matters has not escaped my attention. Probably the most prominent of their campaign was to try and get condoms in prisons. Their excuse as always has been HIV/Aids.
BONELA argues that sodomy happens in prison either because of rape or purely because men in prison have no access to women and therefore relive their sexual desires on other men. BONELA asks us to believe the best relief against this state of affairs is to facilitate its occurrence so that it is done in a hygienic manner. If male rape happens in prison, BONELA urges us to make condoms available for the rapists so that they would not infect their victims. If we don’t make the condoms available in prison, then prisoners are at the risk of contracting HIV/Aids. What a load of rubbish! Certainly rapists don’t exist only in prisons. Ask the police for rape statistics across Botswana and you will realise that this barbaric crime has become common across the country. So how are we to solve it? Perhaps we do need to follow the BONELA route and not deny that there are rapists amongst us and therefore leave condoms in strategic places for the rapists’ convenience.
Perhaps we need an organization for rapists, which while not encouraging and promoting rape, it would ensure that such violence does not result with HIV infection? I am opposed to the BONELA route because it was an attempt to smuggle homosexuality through the backdoor. For if we can distribute condoms amongst men in prisons, we are in effect accepting that there are homosexual acts and that the government must facilitating the safe occurrence of such acts. Once that has been established, then you cannot have legalized homosexuality in prison and criminalized homosexuality outside prison. What in effect BONELA had wanted to achieve was hide behind the reality of HIV infection for the legalization of homosexuality. His Excellency the Vice President, Mompati Merafe, was able to halt their campaign for a while. How we found ourselves in that situation is unclear.
Currently we have no statistics which show how many people have been infected by HIV in prison. It is an argument which though appears forceful, it lacks empirical base. It may indeed be true that rapes occur in prison; but in what scale? And which ones result with infections? Rapes don’t just happen in prison, they also happen outside it, most with devastating consequences. The solution proposed by BONELA is neither convincing nor solving the cause of the problem. The question I wish to ask is this: Why are prisoners denied the right to have sexual relations with their wives or girlfriends? Say a man is sent to prison for five years for stealing a billy goat. Why shouldn’t this man, held in prison, not have an hour of sexual contact per week with his spouse? The man stole a billy goat. He did not sodomize it. He wanted to rear it and enrich himself with the proceeds of its future sale. Why is this basic sexual right denied him? An imprisoned man is in prison so that he could be rehabilitated. Why then take the sexual rights from a man who is going through a period of rehabilitation? That’s the campaign that BONELA should lead; to have men or women have access to their partners whilst in prison.
A similar argument to that of homosexuality is the one of the legalization of prostitution that is also supported by BONELA. You see BONELA doesn’t really argue for the legalization of prostitution, it merely supports prostitutes who are really individuals who currently are at the risk of HIV infection ÔÇô so the argument goes. They engage in their trade in the dark alleys sometimes with no protection. So if these individuals came out of the dark; if hygienic houses were built for them so that they could engage in their trade in safe surroundings then they would be safe from HIV infections. Let us remember ÔÇô the argument continues ÔÇô prostitution happens between two consenting adults, so as long as the two people are adults, certainly there shouldn’t be anything wrong with prostitution! What a load of rubbish! What I know is that drug trade and human trafficking happen between consenting adults but that doesn’t make them right. That argument is flawed. About five years ago a German man put an advert on the internet asking for people who would volunteer to be killed and eaten by him. His mail box was filled with responses of people sending pictures saying: “Kill me! Eat me!” He made his choice. He killed one of them; kept the remaining flesh refrigerated and proceeded to cook his first human dish in garlic sauce. He was later arrested and sentenced to prison for a long time. Consent doesn’t make everything right. Prostitution is essentially the peddling of human flesh for profit. Whether there is consent or not, that doesn’t make it right.
What BONELA must grapple with is the causes of prostitution and attempt to address those comprehensively. Gompieno re tshwanetse go ba sinalala and certainly not kill them!
