The walk of shame

POST-MODERNITY in at least three African countries, among them our own motherland has become replete with moral decay — a sum total of vestiges of poverty or inadequate if not non-existent socialisation or a combination of these factors in the family unit.

Zambia and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa and Cameroon in West Africa have openly stated that teenage pregnancies are replete in those countries, with poverty being blamed for young girls indulging in early sex in the two southern African states as a means of earning a living and with the result that, some become pregnant and drop out of school to face an even bleaker future as single mothers without a career to support themselves and their fatherless children.

Whereas no causative factor is cited for teenage pregnancies in Cameroon, at least pregnant girls who drop out of school reportedly get a second chance to sit their final examinations — a lifeline thrown to put them in good stead for a better future for them and children born out of wedlock.

What has not been openly stated as another causative factor in teenage pregnancies in Cameroon, but which is obviously in purview in the three countries and many others that may also be riven by teenage pregnancies, is a dearth of socialisation in homes with the internet usurping the role of parents in this regard so that young people become dangerously exposed to decadent Western culture as purveyed through advances in communication that have reduced the world to a global village.

Needless to say, with virginity tests that previously kept girls in the village set-up innocent until marriage but now regarded by “more civilised” today’s people as primitive, girls are no longer afraid of being branded with the stigma of loose morals for engaging in premarital sex, witness the prevalence of teenage pregnancies as well as prostitution in urban areas, for instance.

A study conducted in this country found Mashonaland Central province to have a 28 percent rate of child marriages, the highest nationally, with Manicaland coming second at 25,4 percent and Matabeleland North province trailing behind the two with 23,6 percent.

Poverty and cultural practices under which parents give away their daughters in marriage to wealthier men, or as compensation for any grievous wrong done to another family accounts for the prevalence of child marriages in this country, so it would seem.

Trading one’s daughter for monetary or material gain is a practice that ought to have long back witnessed its sunset as it is in this pen’s humble view not different from modern day slavery or selling one’s offspring.

In fact, the law of the land should intervene to protect innocent girls from what amounts to forced marriages in the same way that the marriage of girls under 18 years of age is now outlawed.

In both these two cases, the law of the land must descend on offenders with a big hammer, and be seen to do so, to protect the vulnerable but precious young women who should walk tall and proud as jewels of Zimbabwe.

While still at this topical issue, it is stating the obvious to say that women do not and cannot impregnate themselves. It takes two — a man and a woman — to tango, as the common saying goes.

As such, it sounds rather chauvinistic to not blame teenage boys or men in general, for their part in the fate of girls who get pregnant as if they alone are the scum of their societies.

Males whose moral lifestyles are reckless are active participants in the walk of shame for which teenage girls are branded and should therefore not be treated like saints.

For instance, is it not true that teenage boys without proper socialisation at home cross the dotted line by getting involved in illicit drugs, thefts and other violent crimes, not to mention beer drinking and smoking cigarettes and marijuana, both of which are detrimental to their health.

Not only that. Is it not true that some teenage girls attempt or even succeed in evacuating their pregnancy and in the process jeopardising their health, after their male partners dump them to escape responsibility for the pregnancies and the concomitant consequences?

In the circumstances, those who make young girls pregnant should be made to face the music, as it were, for ruining the education and career prospects of their victims.

Yet the general public’s responses to social pathologies are not helpful but rather escapist with the Church being featured as a crybaby or scapegoat.

“The Church is not playing its full role in our society,” one often hears this or similar, lame excuses for people’s inability to come to grips with anti-social maladies.

Perhaps a most bizarre irony was heard in a local radio discussion earlier this week when prostitutes blamed the Church for not playing its full role by not deterring some of its priests whom the so-called sex workers claimed to often “catcher” in their prowls and housewives and young girls from engaging in prostitution.

But, of course, the Church can only do so much and with the support of members in the communities in which it is located.

The Church does not for instance choral members of the public to itself for sermons in the same way as political youths literally drive people including nonsupporters to political rallies.

Yes, the Church does go out through its members to interact with members of the public. In fact, what the Church does is broadcast its seed /the word of God/ Jesus Christ.

As can be expected in this regard, some of the seed will fall on the road to be devoured by birds; some will land on rocky soil to have their growth stunted; some will land in thorns to be choked in their growth and some seed will land on fertile soil to germinate, flourish and bear impressive fruit.

What comes through from the above scenarios is that where people remain impervious to conviction by the Holy Spirit, the Church cannot do anything else but dust its feet and move on to more receptive ears and hearts to profound joy and celebrations in heaven.

What all this suggests is that every Zimbabwean has a responsibility to ensure that the country enjoys its social norms in order also for the full political and economic development of the state to be consummated.

The alternative, to be avoided at all costs, is the walk of shame.