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Thursday 27 September 2007

‘TIMES’ PEDDLES IGNORANCE ON RAPE

The crime of rape seems to be prevalent in Swaziland. Hardly a week goes by without some report of women and children violated by men. Pastors rape women in their congregation; teachers rape their pupils and gangs of men rape women as punishment for perceived wrongdoing. Not long ago two tourists from Belgium had their car hijacked before they were raped.

All these people were victims of a terrible crime, but if you believe an article in the Times of Swaziland they bought the rape upon themselves. You see, women who get raped are asking for it.

The column Let’s Talk About Sex (21 September 2007) interviewed men about why women get raped and reported that ‘the way women dress is entirely leading. Women bring it upon themselves. If they dress up in mini-skirts and body hugging pants, what are men supposed to do?’

The report added that rapists were not necessarily beasts as society had labelled them. ‘Most of them were men who had tried to ignore their desires which were fuelled by “half naked women” until such time that it became too much to bear and they raped someone.’

I have written before about Let’s Talk About Sex. It is possibly the most ignorant column in Swazi journalism. Previously it told us that women who carry condoms are thought of as ‘whores’ and that homosexuals are child molesters. The column peddles a confused morality and hates women.

Even the Times had it doubts about the rape column. It put a disclaimer at the end of the article that the views are ‘not shared by this newspaper.’

But why did it publish it at all? The article wasn’t a discussion about a topic for which there are many different views and each view is as valid as any other. This article told its readers that it is all right to rape women and men shouldn’t be blamed for rape because women tempt them into wanting sex.

Let’s get one thing straight. Rape has nothing to do with ‘sexual desire’; it is about men having power over women. Blaming women is just an excuse to justify female oppression through the control of women’s behaviour. The people who say that women bring rape on themselves by wearing short skirts tend to be the same people who want to restrict the role of women in Swaziland society to that of servants to men. That’s why in Swazi customary law women have no legal rights separate from men (usually husbands or fathers).

There is absolutely no independent evidence anywhere in the world that supports the ‘short skirts’ explanation for rape, yet the Times has allowed this lie to be repeated in its pages.

Media commentator Angela Black writes that to target a woman as the guilty party in her own rape has dangerous consequences, because as long as the reason is accepted by society as being female seduction, then victims will be reluctant to come forward.

She says that women will fear that instead of attaining legal and social justice, they will instead become the object of social condemnation, and accusations that they had somehow invited the rape.

The knock on effect can only lead to a greater sense of impunity for sex offenders, and instead of preventing rape, may well encourage it.

The Times has made a serious mistake in allowing Let’s Talk About Sex to publish this dangerous nonsense about rape. This isn’t the first time the column has peddled ignorance and hatred. The column is a disgrace to journalism and if the Times had any self-respect it would recognise the error it has made in publishing Let’s Talk About Sex and discontinue the column.

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