Women and Child Abuse

A great deal is always said on the radio and on TV about the abuse of women and children in this country, and many talking heads have a great deal to say. However, it seems to me that they are missing one of the main elements of this problem: the content of programmes to which we, the viewing and listening public, are subjected.

It is a known fact that alcohol is one of the main factors causing this abuse and it is widely accepted that our per capita consumption of alcohol in this country is the highest in the world. Why then do we allow alcohol to be freely advertised in both media? We have succeeded in banning all tobacco adverts, and other such harmful substances, but we continue to be assailed with all manner of adverts for beers, brandies, whiskies, and the like.

The content of our TV programmes is, I feel, also very much to blame. We are given a diet of unleavened violence on E-TV (wrestling, third-rate Hollywood movies) and are daily battered with appalling sitcoms on all channels. Most of our stations preface their broadcasts with a warning that children should only watch under adult supervision, or that the following programme contains bad language, violence, explicit sex, or may be offensive to some viewers, but I doubt that anyone ever reads or takes notice of these warnings. If this were the case, then most of our programmes would never be aired. I would further suggest that all political broadcasts, especially those containing shots of JZ badly singing his Umshini Wami song, or dancing foolishly in front of a microphone, should also bear the warning that the following programme may contain content which is offensive to some viewers. I think this sort of thing is offensive to most of us!!

So, people, lets clean up our act and see where the real causes of the problem lie.