Condoms no solution
I WAS shocked and appalled by the call from the Treatment Action Campaign to have condoms made available at schools. I thought such thinking had long been abandoned. Are we so overwhelmed by the teenage pregnancy rate, early sexual debut and high first time HIV infections that there is no other option?
Remedying these matters require the strengthening of the three institutions which influence the child’s decision-making abilities, namely; the home (social values), the church (ethical values) and the school (moral values).
It is through the combination of these institutions working together that we can fight the scourge of unwanted/teenage pregnancy, the early sexual debut and HIV infections.
Children need to be supported in making good decisions for themselves.
At home, a child must be taught how to behave and engage with other people. They need to learn what is socially acceptable and so forth. At church, children must be taught how to establish their own set of values based on sound ethical principles, and schools must ensure children are able to make moral judgments. Until these three institutions perform their respective roles in forming a child, no amount of condoms will change the situation. — Rev Derrick Shezi, pastor Ruze Baptist Church, Mhlanganiseni, Libode more careful in what she said, but her comments were based on cases over which she presided in court.
As court proceedings and the records thereof are public, it is not difficult to review the applicable cases and determine if her statements could be supported. Why have her accusers not publicly done this?
At the same time, female students at Rhodes University were complaining of a rape culture but were not similarly censured.
If there is a culture of rape, if victims are often children and if perpetrators are family of the victims, these things must concern us.
Jansen was not suspended for being racist, but because she spoke up about abominable realities that are heard daily in our courts. Unlike Rhodes’ students, she’s white. Justice is blind. Except in South Africa, where the race of the judge is more important than the crime and its victims. — Dave Rankin, Cambridge