4th November 2024
Standard Lesotho Bank offers clients M11 million in cashback rewards
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4th November 2024

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Sex-4-Favours: Lesotho’s Hidden Education Curriculum (Part 1)

Standard Lesotho Bank launches groundbreaking M11 million cashback rewards for loyal customers footer
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“Chief Mohlomi had a special regard for children, women and the Elderly.”

~Paraphrasing Professor Max du Preez

As any good, healing, Chief should. The esteemed King and Founder of our 200 year old Nation, Moshoeshoe I, learned from the best. I always say that Chief Mohlomi is, without a shadow of a doubt, hands down, the greatest mentor the world has ever seen. The results speak for themselves; he is the #GOAT of mentorship worldwide because there would be no Kingdom to speak of had he not imparted all that spiritual, physical, psychological and mental largesse to our King. One of his impartations, noted by Professor Max du Pree,  and other well-regarded Mohlomism scholars such as Dr Ntando Sindane, Dr Sean Maliehe, Dr Khali Mofuoa and our beloved Professor LBBJ Machobane, was to regard women, children and the Elderly highly, even higher than the menfolk (because remember some traditional African societies were matriarchal and revering Earth Mothers was but nothing!).

My first two articles for Africa News 24 concentrated on Chief Mohlomi’s virtue and healing leadership style which healed and transformed our Founder, King Moshoeshoe, and made him one of the greatest figures in record human history. To state the obvious, both mentor and mentee, were men. Our patriarchal society was based upon a foundation of love, unity, social security wrought by scientific and wise social engineering, peace and impeccable ethics and morality. Our country, founded upon the ashes and tears of the Lifaqane wars wrought by one of my ancestors, King Shaka kaSenzangakhona also known as Sigidi kaSenzangakhona, set the bar high for how a patriarchal society can be a safe space for women, children and the elderly. I always say that we ought to celebrate that exquisite social engineering more than we do but I am also conflicted about celebrating feats which took place more than 150 years ago while, in 2024, we are regressed beyond measure. Basotho, as a collective in 2024, are so tethered to mediocrity, sexual immorality, a patent lack of ethics in all spheres and an astounding lack of accountability that they thinking NOTHING of insisting on force feeding those who are not, all that toxicity. Those who are striving for higher standards of being and doing are ostracized and called names on social media platforms where everything goes and thus being countercultural therefore becomes quite the revolutionary act.

With all that said, we have a decades’ long pervasive culture here in this country of abusing and hating women and the only thing that makes sense to me is that it is because, at the root of it all, we hate ourselves. If we truly believe that a woman was made out of the body parts of a man then it would not make sense to hate an entity that comes out of your own body unless you hate yourself to begin with. The post-Mohlomi, post-Moshoeshoe society that we have built is so far removed from the exquisite social engineering that mentor and mentee had put in place that I have to theorize (in the absence of credible longitudinal data) that something majorly traumatic happened in the interim. Why do you hate and disgust yourselves so much bo-Ntate ba Basotho?

We live in a country that is prolific with policy formulation and the adoption of seemingly progressive legislations, we are even prolific at signing and ratifying key international instruments across the swathe of the UN family. Half the time it is peer and international pressure and not something that organically emanates from our consciousness as Basotho. And that is one of the key points of departure: we are, plainly put, The Great Pretenders. Nowhere is the intersection of these factors (bilateral and multilateral peer pressure and political pretence) more evident than in these controversial, failed reforms processes.

Unfortunately for the girl child, and the woman she evolves into, present-day Lesotho is nothing like what Chief Mohlomi nor King Moshoeshoe imagined even in their worst nightmares. Lesotho has not been a safe space for women, children or the elderly for ages. I honestly do not know how far back the rot goes, when the hidden education curriculum was introduced into the school and post-school system, I am only 47. What is this hidden education curriculum that I am alluding to? In a nutshell, freshly hatched little girls are taught, by their male teachers in high school, that they are tools to be used to satisfy sir’s rampant sexual appetite and, as a reward for her obeisance, he will give her grades that she does not deserve and he will let all manner of maladaptive behaviour henceforth “slide”. A small percentage of women now do it to boys I hear. The traumatized young lady (she is traumatized but she has to survive, right?) then goes to any of our higher education institutions, including the only public university in the land, the National University of Lesotho, perhaps, hoping for a reprieve from the insatiable appetites of the sirs back in high school. The young lady discovers, to her silent horror that sir never left, his ghost is right there with her accompanying her through those big University gates. Sir is now a Dr or Professor of something and her future is now entirely in his hands, or so he has led her to believe. Some of these girls give in, they collapse without a fight (meantime, back at the ranch, their self-worth, their self-esteem, their morals, disintegrate, bit by bit) and some of the young ladies say, hey, listen, if this is how the real world works, bring it on, I shall open these thighs for whoever so demands it and I shall get that degree and make it in this cruel world. Again, the psyche of a young lady who has to rationalize these moral and ethical horrors is bound to be damaged beyond recognition.

All these crimes against Basotho humanity, all these affronts to the legacies of Chief Mohlomi and King Moshoeshoe, happen under the watch of men, of the patriarchy…a patriarchy that is prolific at pretentious policymaking and a “victim” of bilateral and multilateral peer pressure. It is no surprise therefore, that under the watch of the patriarchy, the following instruments are violated daily in this country:

֍The grundnorm, the Constitution of Lesotho 1993 as amended:

  • Section 4 titled “Fundamental human rights and freedoms”

* freedom from inhuman treatment.

* freedom from discrimination.

* the right to equality before the law and the equal protection of the law.

The right to personal liberty entrenched in section 4(1)(b) and elaborated upon in section 6 must, I submit, be expanded to include the right to not have your personal space invaded by a man demanding sexual favours (they are often gropey and rapey and just plain disgusting if you ask me). Similarly, section 4(1)(c) entrenches the freedom of movement and residence which is then expanded upon in section 7. As it pertains to women, section 7 should be explicitly expanded to include the right of an inebriated woman to freely stagger home, throw herself on her bed in a drunken stupor and nurse a babelaas the next day like any good ole male has done for most of his life. I grew up seeing drunken men stagger home since I was a little girl. Never have I ever heard anyone say, “Well they deserve to be raped in that state” or “They were asking to be knifed or murdered.” Simply, just, leave women alone. Leave them be.

And these arguments are getting old, the “how was she dressed ” one being a prime example of plain diabolical thinking…how was the 5 month old baby raped by her father dressed, how was the female pensioner in village X dressed, the nun, the middle-aged female hawker? What a sick society this is. This has zilch to do with how women are dressed; whichever way they are dressed, men and boys still rape them. Not all men, huh? That train is never late. Listen, all you wonderful “not-all-men” defenders…when was the last time you held these rampant rapists to account on social media for spewing all kinds of bile? When was the last time you defended the honour of a woman? The reason why the “Not-All-Men” Brigade fails to impress me is that it does not stand up to be counted. It is often a knee-jerk, defensive reaction from an otherwise indifferent male who holds his head down and minds his own business while his society implodes. That is not something that I can respect. It is cowardice of the highest order.

֍The Penal Code Act, No.6 of 2010;

֍The Sexual Offences Act No. 3 of 2003;

֍The Labour Code Order, No. 24 of 1992 as variously amended;

֍The Codes of Good Practice No. 4 of 2003 (so-called “soft law”).

All these pieces of legislation flow from the Constitution of Lesotho 1993 and all of them prohibit and disavow quid pro quo and peer-to-peer sexual harassment and rape and all forms of sexual assault. We have had said Acts for years; our Constitution is 31 years old. At the regional (SADC), continental (African Union) and international (International Labour Organisation) levels, Lesotho is also either a signatory to or a ratifier of instruments that disavow, prohibit and mitigate this type of conduct at the workplace and in other social settings. It IS that serious. These instruments include, inter alia:

֍The Charter of Fundamental Social Rights in SADC 2003;

֍The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights 1981;

֍ILO Convention Concerning the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work 2019.

Let us not forget also that children are protected from violations of their human rights by various domestic and international pieces of legislation, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 and its 3 Optional Protocols being the most prominent. The relevant Optional Protocol in this case is titled, “Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography” 2000. Lesotho, once again, is prolific at signing, ratifying and adopting. But, one thing remains true, to date, we have a hidden education curriculum in our school system faithfully accompanying the study of cumulonimbus clouds, prose and verse and 1 + 1 = 2 and it follows all of us to the labour market where our nipples get twisted without our permission, our behinds nonchalantly groped, sexual favours demanded in return for jobs and/or career advancement and I wonder, what in the world is this country, so disturbingly good at pretending to be something that it is not, actually celebrating this 200th year of its existence?

For once, let us be truthful…we are a disgrace to Chief Mohlomi, King Moshoeshoe, Nkhono ‘MaNtsopa Makhetha, Queen Manthatisi, Ramats’eatsana, Chief Gabashane Masupha and so many others. An utter disgrace. We should not be holding even one single carnival this year. We should be having frank conversations about who we have become and what we should do about it.

And I want to call upon all women and girls, across partisan lines to boycott the 2027 General Election if the following does not happen:

  1. The GOL and 11th Parliament institute a thoroughgoing Commission of Inquiry into sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, sexual degradation and the attendant cover-up’s in the school and post-school systems going back to 1980. At least. The main pilot site should be the worst offender, my alma mater and current employer, the National University of Lesotho.
  2. Various institutions and the relevant officers being held to account. We need to see accountability in this country for once; the lack of accountability is one of the major reasons why we have regressed into this Wild West that we have become. Basotho ba ts’aba li-consequence, let those heads roll and see the stats improve within days!

I boldly say boycott because, bo-’M’e, logically, you cannot be voting in men and women who do not care for your safety, some of them are even the worst violators out there of women and girls as we know full well…so why give them access to that kind of power? It makes us seem pretty stupid if you ask me. Rewarding toxic patriarchy by voting it into power? No, we need to be asking a different question in 2024 going forward.

Mothepa Ndumo writes in her personal capacity. Adv Ndumo is a Legal Academic at the National University of Lesotho, a Pension Law Scholar in the Faculty of Law registered for a PhD focusing on the domestic investment of pension funds, a Thomas Psychometrics Practitioner, an Industrial Sociologist and Certified Executive and Leadership Coach. She is an Alum of the National University of Lesotho, the University of Cape Town and the University of Namibia. Advocate Ndumo is the Founder & CEO of the Tataiso-Bhotani Group which has interests in corporate training, accredited coaching and mentorship and film, tv series and talk shows and publishing across multimedia platforms. Her passions are Lesotho, Afrika, indigenous systems of governance, history, young people and she is a lover of animals and of The Creator.

www.tataiso-afrika.com

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