SHIROKO: Columnist is right, lowering age of consent like feeding ‘ugali’ to infants

I agree with columnist Mutuma Mathiu’s “Law should protect our children from pests, not endanger them” (DN, March 29).

Our “past” cultures used to marry off girls as soon as they hit puberty. Many, including my grandmother, became mothers at 14. But it was about getting married, not having sex for fun.

The reason the government set the age of consent at 18 was because lifestyles had changed, and girls had to finish school.

But while we need to address the issue of adolescents rotting in jail for having sex with their agemates, are the teachers whom TSC interdicted recently for sexually molesting their pupils in prison? Adults can bribe their way to freedom; poor boys can’t!

Sadly, we have allowed children access to pornographic material. A young man who has watched porn will seek to vent its side effects somehow.

Some will go for sugar mummies. These ones don’t go to jail. But others go for innocent younger girls because they can manipulate them. They then end up behind bars.

Secondly, our ladies are partly to blame. They say “My dress, my choice” and that’s ok. It’s said that men don’t understand women. I hasten to add that women, too, don’t understand men at all! When a young man sees a scantily dressed lady, and he cannot approach because she is senior to him, he will seek other ways to go about it.

He can’t afford a commercial sex worker; so, he will go for the 16-year-old girl. Effectively, the innocent “my dress, my choice” causes an innocent girl to be raped and a young boy jailed. Not to mention pregnancies, diseases and dropping out of school.

To reduce the age of consent is like feeding a two-month-old infant ugali. It is good for adults, yes, but dangerous to an infant.