THE OPEN MIND COLLECTION

Law Is Who Makes It

"One of the toughest things of being a man is to be blamed for your weakness and that of a woman. What am I trying to say? My girlfriend and I committed armed robbery and we were both caught but I was the one who was convicted. She was sent free, although she was the one who had persuaded me in the first place!"

"She's not old enough to suffer the consequences", the men in gowns said. It was not the mapostoris in their white gowns who said this. It was the men in black gowns and white wigs of the ancient colonial regime who did. So I was punished for the crime of two-in-consent.

"This is injustice." I tell myself this day by day as I'm restricted by dull prison walls to dreaming small. In fact, I can't even dream. The cell is a nightmare on its own to find sleep in it. It's as cold as death itself. I think I'm dead already! "It's this injustice that has sent me to the grave at a young age!"

If being convicted of armed robbery is unjust because one of two is let free then what more being sentenced for impregnating a girl all because she was less than eighteen? It seems unfair to say that I robbed her of her virginity and she did not rob me of mine...just because I am a man. This armed robbery story has replayed in my head over time to the extent that I almost convinced myself that I was guilty of that crime..., but no, that's not my crime. It sounds too ridiculous a story, to be true. It's not the reason why I am chained by this invisible heavy iron of guilt.

Someone just woke up from sleep if she ever slept and declared, "All men or boys who impregnate a girl below the age of sixteen..., uhm, let's make it eighteen, will suffer the consequences because they're ruining the lives of our 'innocent' daughters", and so I was one of the most unfortunate ones although I was just as old as my girlfriend and we had consented on this union. Now I'm just as bad as a rapist who has been proven guilty and worse than the rapist who walks free only because the victim feared to speak!

I have a son aged two. His mother brings him during her visits to the prison. He'll spend the early years of his life without knowing the care of a father and my heart breaks that his mother has to struggle to raise him on her own without me. I knew there were consequences for my action but I didn't deserve such a harsh punishment as this!

Her parents wanted me to pay for the damage and marry her as is custom but the authorities intervened and exercised their authority. Even my father-in-law is in prison for wanting to give his daughter in marriage to me, for the voice of the people says, "We will not tolerate men who encourage child marriages in our communities!" but I was also a child. I was just not a girl child.

It's all the authority's opinion that the girl child is more vulnerable because she gets pregnant and is therefore disadvantaged but the boy child is also vulnerable when imprisoned as if he 'commited the crime on his own'. He does not get the chance to practice responsibility by looking after the girl and the child. The girl is greatly disadvantaged when she lacks the support of the man responsible. The girl's father now stands powerless as if he made the decision on his own to marry away his daughter as is custom when she gets pregnant out of wedlock, and yet the mother's voice could be heard in the bedroom saying, "Wangu mwana haaendi asina kubvisirwa roora!" ... "My daughter will not go without a bride price!"

I've now written on the walls of my prison in bold, 'The root cause of child marriages in our communities is not the males of the communities. The root cause is the incompetent leader of the community who fails to grasp the fact that the poorer we are, the more we give birth'. The law can only be as effective as the one who makes it. I for one say, "This law that has landed me in prison is just as unjust as the one who made it!"