What’s prostitution got to do with it?

via What’s prostitution got to do with it? – NewsDay Zimbabwe August 21, 2015

THERE are certain things in life that you can rely on happening with certainty. And one of them is that First Lady Grace Mugabe will not cease to amaze all and sundry.

By Conway Tutani

Remember her whirlwind onslaught against then Vice-President Joice Mujuru which took the nation completely by surprise last year? She does not mince her words.

And she did not let anyone down last week when she once again railed against paedophiles (persons who are sexually attracted to children), but went a step further by telling them in no uncertain terms that they must instead go for — to use her own word — mahure (profane Shona word for “prostitutes”) now that prostitution has been sort of legalised by a Constitutional Court (ConCourt) ruling that police had no right to arrest loitering women for allegedly soliciting for prostitution.

In the landmark ruling in May this year, the ConCourt outlawed the Zimbabwe Republic Police’s dragnet operations targeting alleged prostitutes and arresting them for standing in streets looking for clients, saying this does not amount to solicitation as required by the law.

Addressing a sizeable crowd of Zanu PF supporters at a rally where she commissioned a water project at an irrigation scheme last Friday, Grace diverted from her prepared speech and tore into men in the habit of sexually abusing young girls whereas prostitutes are aplenty.

Not withstanding that she was addressing a socially conservative rural community, Grace said: “Musa bate vana, mahure aripo (Don’t rape minors, prostitutes are there).”

“Is not it that prostitutes have been allowed to freely do their work?”

“Hure” (plural mahure) is unmentionable in a public address. It can only be used in the privatest of circles, and in anger to swear at someone. It’s a vulgarity used to scorn. The word exists, but to go on and use it in public especially before a mixed audience of all ages is definitely in bad taste.

There are many subtler alternatives that the First Lady could have used, but she went for the crudest.

The euphemistic “pfambi” would have done the trick.

Nothing was going to be lost in translation. The message would still have been conveyed without any detraction caused by the shock and disgust in her audience who glanced at each other with stunned looks, according to various reports, as if saying: “Ndochii?/ Kuyini lokhu?/ What the heck is this?”

The last thing one should do when addressing people is to make them feel embarrassed for you. That is why there was more of nervous giggling than genuine laughter. It was more out of astonishment than amusement. The joke, if any, was on the First Lady.

That is the gist of what she said, but the ferocity of it was lost in translation as some publications opted to use the mild term “sex workers” for “mahure” because of the bad taste of the language.

Hence, a non-Shona speaker would completely miss this.

But you cannot blame the media for upholding good taste in a family newspaper by toning down shocking language to decent language.

It was the same in a report in the State media recently when a former freedom fighter openly boasted that “we killed whites like flies”. Yes, we know the cruelty of war, but he could have used civilised words like “we inflicted heavy casualties on stubborn whites”. The editor of the paper should have done better than publish those words verbatim.There is need for self-restraint when we talk about sex and death.

But make no mistake that my criticism is out of siding with paedophiles. No. They are the lowest of low lives.

They are unforgivable opportunists who have no guilt over doing unspeakable and unforgivable evil things. Hurting the young and innocent is all in a day’s work for them. Every right-thinking person is disgusted about it except the paedophiles themselves. In my estimation, paedophiles are worse than anything that shuffles on two legs — that’s for sure.

This brings us to the next point: Prostitutes are not an alternative for paedophiles. Even with so many women around, paedophiles will still prey on children. It’s about a state of mind — a sick state of mind.

They are not in the least interested in any woman, but young children. They lust after children, not adult, developed women. So the legalisation of prostitution won’t as much as make a dent. It’s no deterrent at all.

The First Lady, with her PhD grounded on a sociological perspective, ought to be aware of what is called normal distribution.
Simply put, normal distribution means that most people — in which category the average person belongs — are basically good with extremes of very good and very bad occurring on either side.

It’s, thus, easy to extrapolate —that is, to logically apply specific facts and knowledge to draw a link and conclude — that paedophiles fall into the very bad category.

Not to mention that there is normal distribution of crime. That is to say there will always be a criminal fringe in society made up of people whose brains are wrongly wired from conception, where it all starts.

It’s about depravity, not sex starvation. That’s why they can’t help but commit crime. That is why crime cannot be completely eradicated. That is why police stations and prisons are permanent structures. That’s why people make lifetime professions being police officers and prison guards.

That is why convicted paedophiles and other perverts are now being electronically tagged in the United States and United Kingdom, among others, to monitor their movements using global satellite positioning technology to pinpoint the wearer anywhere to within three metres and ensure that they don’t “stray” into high-risk areas where children are likely to be.

What is needed is a practical, workable approach because, no matter how much we may try, society will always have such misfits.

So, it’s a no-brainer to extrapolate that legalising prostitution on its own won’t deter paedophiles. It’s so obvious it doesn’t take rocket science.

But, with all due respect, what the First Lady has done is to interpolate. That is, she has inserted or implanted something of a totally different nature — prostitution — into the troubling but separate issue — that of paedophilia.

 ctutani@newsday.co.zw