Tshireletso raises tempest on social media
Baboki Kayawe | Tuesday December 16, 2014 20:34
In a highly polarised debate online, some have dismissed the Mahalapye East MP for bringing up such sensitive topics with the potential of degrading the social fabric of society.
Perhaps the most controversial topic of the year, Tshireletso’s remarks caused a heated war of words between conservatives and liberals. The liberals said that criminalisation of sex work and abortion is in fact fuelling the status quo in as much as HIV/AIDS, maternal deaths and related ills were concerned.
Commenting on Facebook one user said: “Goodness! Even neighbouring South Africa has long passed this debate. Don’t you realise that such punitive laws concerning these issues are simply crippling this nation?
All the first world countries have long legalised this, we could be very well further in development if such issues were addressed long ago. Or I guess typically as we are in the third world it means we are also of the third mind? Then watch this space if you disagree, HIV/AIDS will continue to finish us, families will continue to mourn their dead young ones who got desperate enough to do it otherwise not professionally...”
Yet another responded thus: ”Residents of Mahalapye, there goes your representative! Is she bringing developments by so saying? [sic]”
When contacted for comment on the matter, executive director of the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS, Cindy Kelemi, hailed Tshireletso for her advocacy on these issues.
“We are very excited that the MP is calling for legalisation of sex work and abortion because as an organisation, we have been calling for the decriminalisation of sex work,” Kelemi said.
She went further to label Tshireletso’s remarks progressive as they called for a comprehensive and inclusive environment for sex work.
“She is promoting a conducive environment that mitigate violence, rape and protecting sex workers against any form of violence in their trade,” she added.
According to Kelemi, other parliamentarians, especially from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party, needed to emulate Tshireletso who chose to put her personal beliefs aside and moral standing to pursue public agenda.
Speaking on the issue of abortion in relation to sex work, she said in most instances women in this trade find themselves having unwanted pregnancies – and it would be commendable if government acted on Tshireletso’s call.
However, many commentators approached the issue from a biblical viewpoint, to the extent that they questioned Tshireletso’s involvement with the church, citing instances where she officiated in church openings. One social media user wrote: “And then she gets invited by churches to come and make official openings etc. This is anti-Christ in all respects. The wrath of God is awaiting one as such! [sic]”
The Botswana Council of Churches, known for being vocal of issues of morality and societal virtues in the country was not available to comment on this matter as the chairperson was out of the country at the time of going to press.
The bible does not condone prostitution, though documented sex workers like Rahab were never condemned. Academically, the issue of abortion involves the balance of rights and freedoms between the mother and the baby. However, in the theological lens the pressing question is that; at what point does life begin between conception and birth?
Kgosi Thabo Masunga of the North East Region told Mmegi that in his view as a traditional leader is that it was too soon for the country to be dwelling on legalising these issues without having first conducted thorough research on their root causes and possible solutions.
“It is too soon to call for the regulation of such without establishing what their societal implications would be,” he said.
Masunga argued that as a nation, Batswana have deviated from the family set up and processes that made child rearing a collective issue that also kept the societal fabric intact.
“The advent of the nuclear family has swallowed the extended family and all the support systems that were in existence, thereby resulting in a proliferation of more challenges such as poverty,” he noted.
Emphasising that he personally did not agree with what Tshireletso was calling for, Masunga said such a move would have great implications. He called for continued efforts in combating poverty, gender inequity and rural-urban migrations and that making strides in this regard would minimise social ills.
“No society should call upon itself to legalise these practices,” said Masunga, reiterating his past motion on the establishment of a Family Affairs Ministry.