They too need a master list 0 So the Swapo Party Youth League condemns homosexuals and their behaviour, but they add that they respect human rights.Interesting – a contradiction in terms, but interesting nonetheless. The league’s statement follows the UN’s request that Namibia decriminalises sodomy and recognises the rights of homosexuals.
Let’s face it. Namibia has a veritable smorgasbord of problems in almost every sector or sphere of the population. There are many, diverse challenges one can choose from, not the least of which are the many challenges which face our youth, and our children.
We need to prioritise people. And the league would do well to follow Minister Sophia Shaningwa’s advice to the local authorities to create a master list. Such a list would do the league well. Maybe, the leaders of the league could step out of their offices and walk the streets, not just of Windhoek, but maybe of Bethanie, or Khorixas, or even Divundu?
Our youth is languishing near shebeens, drinking, making themselves guilty of all kinds of criminal activity. Those who are not, are selling boiled eggs with Aromat outside ministry offices, or apples on the side of the road, where people converge. Maybe they are sitting with a paint brush outside a DIY store, or, they are driving taxis, or working in the gardens of the affluent.
Our children need to be fed at schools because there is no food at home. Our children need to head households because their parents are dead or missing. Our children need to be careful when they start their long and arduous trek to school early in the morning because they will be raped or mugged in riverbeds. Our children need to fear family members or fathers who engage in spousal or intimate partner violence after drinking sprees.
Our children have so much to worry about. Our children understand far too much violence and suffering at an early age.
But the leaders of the Swapo Party Youth League are concerned that two men can engage in sex, consensually, in the privacy of their own home, while holding jobs and paying taxes.
We cannot be serious.