Imagine if Nigerian Amina Lawal had used contraceptives, would she still be in the media’s glare as an example of how women continue to be maligned in the 21st century?
Chances are she would not, because there would be no “proof” that she had had sex outside the boundaries accepted by the moral powers-that-be in Katsina, Nigeria, where she lives (for now).
And before the lynch mob lashes out, let me say upfront that the question does not in any way attempt to blame her for not visiting a family-planning clinic and consequently the plight she finds herself in. It is rather aimed at pointing out the duplicity of society’s so-called moral values.
My point is that her “fault” was not so much that she contravened the so-called moral standards of her society, but that there was a “smoking gun” — her child.
Having never lived under sharia law, my knowledge is limited to what I read and hear in the media. But I have lived in South Africa all my life and have been a practicing Catholic for most of it, so I feel a little qualified to speak about how “proof” of sex is a determinant of our moral character.
In proudly secular South Africa, I have seen and heard of unmarried women being ostracised from their churches because they committed the sin of falling pregnant outside of wedlock.
These young women had been held in high esteem by their fellow congregants who would have been proud to have them as their daughters or daughters-in-law. That they had boyfriends and were in all probability having sex was not an issue, as long as they did not fall pregnant.
I know of friends who all but faced excommunication from their mainstream churches because the only time they appeared before a pastor as a couple was to ask for their child be baptised.
I have seen and heard of young Catholic women being prevented from taking the eucharist because they were unwed mothers.
I have noticed, though not necessarily observed them myself, the virtues of virginity and celibacy as manifested in the Virgin Mary and have believed in the miracle of the immaculate conception.
But since the advent of the Pill, playing maiden (and what better way than remaining childless until marriage) has become easier. The Pill and other birth control methods have inadvertently become contraceptives of the conscience.
It soothes the consciences of the faithful as much as it does those of the high priests of moral behaviour. Like the condom, it protects the indulgent from STDs (society’s theological demigods).
Sex to the faithful is still taboo.
I am no shrink but I suspect that Lawal’s plight moves us because as fallible human beings we, in our own way, are also stoned for doing the deed.
We are outraged because we know that if we lived under sharia law most of us, including our friends and loved ones, would qualify to to be half buried and have our community pelt us with stones until we died.
We are further outraged that Katsina’s moral regeneration programme means that Lawal’s child will be orphaned because the state intends to make Lawal an example of the perils of “immoral” behaviour.
We are indignant because the state has clearly been selective in who they prosecute.
The father of the child should probably have been convicted on the grounds of common purpose. The fact that he can still walk the streets of Katsina freely adds peri-peri to the festering wound.
Remember Laurie Fraser, the guy who is waiting for the outcome of an appeal after being convicted of kidnapping his son to prevent the boy from being adopted by a Malawian couple?
At the root of his problem is the fact that the law, as it stood then, denied unwed fathers the right to have a say in the lives of their children. The law has thankfully been changed.
As I see it, denying Fraser, and other unwed fathers, the right to fatherhood is akin to being stoned to death for having sex outside of marriage.
A few years ago a Soweto schoolgirl made headlines when she refused to be barred from school because she was pregnant.
Moralists were outraged because being excluded from school was the “normal sentence” for girls who fell pregnant.
I suspect that that school and many other institutions do not have a policy to exclude anyone who has premarital sex … as long as they do not fall pregnant.
I have never understood what Jesus Christ meant as well as I do now when he said “let he who has no sin cast the first stone”.