Law should protect our children from pests, not endanger them

What you need to know:

  • Why not just have laws that protect children and allow us to remove predators and other bad people from society?

  • Lowering the age of consent does not help our daughters and granddaughters. Leave it alone.

  • The current law protects our children, as it should. We are not outlawing sex; we are merely asking our children, for their own good, to wait until they are 18.

A friend visited Kodiaga prison in Kisumu and came out with a story of horror: It appeared as if nearly all the prisoners were in for rape. He visited King’ong’o in Nyeri — he is in the criminal justice trade — and came out with the same story. There is a rape crisis in the country, he opined, and it probably had something to do with the Children Act, which criminalised sexual relations between teens.

SEDUCING

First, I must declare my interest in the matter: I am the father of many daughters. I love children and nothing brings me more joy than raising them, arguing with them, worrying about them, dreaming with them.

The saddest part of my weekend these days is that my children don’t want to watch my movies with me anymore; they find them awful. My fondest memories are curling up on the sofa with the kids for a good movie. Monsters Vs Aliens, Sound of Music, Wonder Woman and many more bring lots of memories.

I am not very rational about children and their protection. But I will try to make a reasonable argument.

On Thursday, the country was awash with debate after the Daily Nation informed readers in advance about a report they were preparing on the proposal to allow sex with younger children. Today, it’s a crime to be involved sexually with a child; that is, anyone below the age of 18.

Apparently, because of the large number of adolescents who have been incarcerated for sexual contact with girls younger than 18, judges of the Court of Appeal have asked for the minimum age of consent to be lowered to 16. This presumes, of course, that those who are having sex with children are other children, which is not true. There is a large number of older people seducing children.

The danger is that we might rewrite the law, disadvantage the children, put their lives and health at risk and benefit paedophiles by allowing them legal access to our children. What is the biggest need in the lives of our children, especially girls? Is it access to legal sex? The biggest challenge for many girls is staying in school, completing their studies and qualifying for a job that will give them a good life. Nothing could be more dangerous to children than sex.

ATROCIOUS

What sometimes happens in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is widespread and wholesale rape of women, especially girls, is one of the most atrocious things in a continent where bad things are not unknown.

I have always thought that Africans raise their children, not attack them as an act of war. In the olden days, women and children were never touched during war. You may add that wells were never poisoned, animals and crops were never destroyed and bridges were left intact. But the fact remains that, even in war, children were unharmed.

It worries me that, rather than getting better at protecting children, Africans are getting worse. They are putting them under arms and hurting them for pleasure or to make a political or military point.

My colleagues have pointed out to me that it is possible to deal with consenting sex among adolescents as separate from contact between a child and an older person. A 17-year-old boy who becomes inappropriately involved with his 16-year-old girlfriend is not treated the same as a 35-year-old. I’d rather everyone, including the boy, just obeyed the law.

We live in a dangerous place. Africa is not just the Cradle of Mankind, it is also a hunting ground for predators who roam our lands in search of children. They might come as tourists or missionaries to establish orphanages and sanctuaries — what an irony — for children. There are homegrown perverts, too, seeking out children for transactional sex.

The current law protects our children, as it should. We are not outlawing sex; we are merely asking our children, for their own good, to wait until they are 18.

BAD LUCK

Whereas I don’t aspire to be a dictator in my house, my thinking is that my children should behave according to my wishes until the age of 21. After that, I will have no unsolicited opinion about anything they do.

They can club until the wee hours, have boyfriends and husbands, move out, move in, move up and down … my work in raising them is done. But until then, it is my responsibility to protect them in the best way I know how. Just like any other parent.

I am told that there are many paedophiles in my tribe these days. Men smoke weed, it addles their brains and they attack children. In the olden days, I was told, there were no bad men in our villages because bad men would have such bad luck, it often resulted in the most unusual of accidents.

On their way home in the dark, it was not unheard of for such bad men to stumble and plunge down a gorge — there are many deep gorges and valleys in my home county — and be so smashed up against the rocks that it would be impossible to determine how they actually met their end. I have often wondered in my more uncharitable moments how bad luck unerringly selected bad people. So, rather than leaving it to bad luck, why not just have laws that protect children and allow us to remove predators and other bad people from society?

Lowering the age of consent does not help our daughters and granddaughters. Leave it alone.