Child Molestation

Our Favourite Hobby-Horse

Well, here we go again! On the e-tv news tonight (19/6/06) there was a story about two eleven-year-old girls in Cape Town who were picked up by a paedophile. Yes, you got it – Child Molestation par excellence. It seems that the great and heinous dereliction of duty was on the part of the SAPS who, despite the matter having been reported to them, have so far done nothing.

Now, if I understand correctly, the complaint was lodged by these two delightful children, not because they had been molested (e-tv’s word not mine), but in the end because one girl had been paid R5 more than the other for her services.

It is quite clear, therefore, that these children were not complaining about the terrible things done to them or the amount of physical suffering they were made to endure, but the cause of their complaint was simply that they had not been fairly paid for their services.

I can only say that, under the circumstances, the SAPS have my full support in ignoring the complaint altogether.

Child molestation is South Africa’s favourite hobby-horse, and, it seems, one that will be flogged way past the point of death. These two girls knew full well what they were getting into and, it seems, were none the worse for the experience; they were quite happy to accept money for indecent acts and the illegal use of their bodies. The only reason that the story ever saw the official light of day was that one was paid slightly more than the other.

It is high time that we re-evaluated what we consider to be a child; these were not children in the sense of the word that you or I might understand; they were prostitutes, plain and simple. They were quite prepared to sell themselves in return for a small financial reward and were not in the least concerned how their story would impact on the life of the perpetrator – the lonely man who picked them up, took them home, no doubt bathed them (I sincerely hope so), had his wicked way with them, and then paid them. This scenario had not happened once but quite a number of times without any complaint.

Now, bleeding hearts, come out of the woodwork and start chaining yourselves to railings and waving placards in front of police stations complaining that the police are not doing their jobs. Whilst I am no proponent of sex with under-age children, I am certainly not so silly as to believe that the guilty party is always the adult. In this case, the ‘children’ should be found guilty of entrapment and engaging in under-age prostitution and should be punished accordingly.

Let’s get it right just for once and allow the police to get on with the job of preventing real crime and arresting real criminals.