Suffer the little children

Mmegi Editor | Thursday October 16, 2014 15:11

According to the BPS, many of the hordes of local suspects arrested have claimed that they did not know that the exchange and distribution of pornographic or obscene material through the Internet is an offence! That such a statement has even been released underlines the degradation of our morals as a society and the deprivation of some of our basest members. In a society that prides itself on socio-cultural pillars espoused by the Botho ideology, child pornography is an egregious blight on our collective conscience.

That there are individuals out there manipulating, exploiting and destroying our children’s innocence for their illicit sexual pleasures is barely fathomable, making the police’s press statement even more bone chilling.

It is thanks to that socio-cultural bedrock passed on from generation to generation and embedded in our laws, that Botswana has largely been insulated from the baser criminal instinct and has only had to deal with the garden varieties common to most societies. It is thus rudely discomforting to discover that a callous and destructive crime such as child pornography has not only hit local shores, but has become so embedded that the police use words such as ‘inundated’. As a nation, our common focus with regards to children has been on attaining noble goals such as universal access to healthcare, primary education and subsidised secondary and tertiary education. All efforts and funds have gone to protecting children from disease such as the PMTCT programme, from poverty, abandonment, physical abuse and ignorance.

Less focus has been on protecting our children from the perverts among us who have made possessing, manufacturing and distributing child pornography some form of a sick hobby.

And this is understandable simply because not in our wildest imaginations could we have expected such a dreadful vice to break through our socio-cultural buffers and reach the innocents we cherish.

We call upon the upcoming Parliament to speedily address this obscenity in our midst by firstly demanding more accurate statistics and trend analysis on child pornography within Botswana and secondly moving towards specific child pornography legislation.  At present, child pornography is partly covered by the Cybercrime and Computer Related Crime Act, but from the ‘inundation’, it is quite clear that a more specific legislative deterrent will have to be put in place. We also call upon our fellow Batswana to swiftly identify and report anyone involved in any matter related to this crime to the nearest law enforcement and also abstain from any approximation of the offence. Our law enforcement alone cannot protect our children. We have to do our part.

                                                             Today’s thought

               “Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul.

                                                               - Dave Pelzer