Don't stigmatise women with anti-pornography law
Mar 10, 2014
From the day the anti-pornography Bill was passed into law, the public has witnessed many cases of stigma aimed at women. Many have taken advantage of this law to scold every woman they see wearing a short skirt.
trueBy Simon J. Mone
From the day the anti-pornography Bill was passed into law, the public has witnessed many cases of stigma aimed at women. Many have taken advantage of this law to scold every woman they see wearing a short skirt.
Helped by the wider media coverage, the thinking of some people has been swayed to believe that the law is aimed at curbing ladies’ bad dressing. Let us not turn a blind eye at the wider spectrum to which this regulation applies.
On the many occasions that my “boda-boda” rider has taken me back home, I have had to spend some time to convince him to stop thinking that the law is aimed at ladies dressed in mini-skirt. In fact, I have witnessed on more than one occasion when a woman passing by a “boda-boda” stage is enduring tirades of insult aimed at her direction.
This has left me almost certain that many of us in the community share the same believe that the anti-pornography law is equal to the mini-skirt law. I have got to be forgiven for reminding us on the application of the law.
We should study carefully the content of this law. According to the document, pornography is any cultural practice, radio, television programme, writing, publication, advertisement, broadcast, upload on internet, display, entertainment, music, dance, picture, audio or video recording, show, exhibition or any combination of the aforementioned that depicts:
a) A person engaged in explicit sexual activities or conduct
b) Sexual parts of a person such as breasts, thighs, buttocks, or genitalia
c) Erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement, or
d) Any incident , act or behaviour to corrupt morals
I choose not to be vulgar but you and I know that the level of our morals had degenerated quite a bit over the years. This includes pull down (“balancing” or swagger) that the boys do a lot.
It is exactly for this reason that the law is aimed at restraining bad behaviour in order that the good morals are sustained.
Uganda Government will not collapse indeed Mr. Ofwono Opondo
The reaction of American and European Governments towards the position taken by Government of Uganda has got to be very arrogant. It is a clear show of disrespect to an independent nation that alongside Algeria, Cameroon, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Tunisia and Zambia is exercising its independence in taking decisions for the good of its citizens.
Considering that many developed states around the World are passing bills and enacting laws that should be protested.
A law such as euthanasia which is the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma should never be allowed to apply because killing a person whom one has not created is against the will of the creator, the one person with the discretion to take away life.
What the foreign governments should have done is, instead of acting bullishly by suspending or postponing or withdrawing or cutting aid, they should have engaged the Government of Uganda into a discussion to try and see if it can drop or relax or amend provisions of that law that they feel was unfair to the rights of minority groups.
Foreign governments are the ambassadors of dialogue, so why did they not pursue this course? It was disrespectful and a stuff of double standards.
Simon J. Mone is a Civil Engineer
E-mail: smone@mail.com