Editor, RE: “How can legalising adultery and prostitution deter crime?” (The New Times, February 15). It seems Donart failed to read the article properly. Prostitution apparently was never a crime. What had previously been criminal was to use the services of a prostitute. Now, given that prostitution was not a crime to begin with, his/her baseless claims of anarchy breeding in Rwandan society fall apart like a house of cards in a rainstorm. The struggle this individual is experiencing is what happens when you blur the lines between your own personal morals and an entire society’s legal system. Decriminalising the use of prostitutes has nothing to do with, as the commentator calls it, illegitimising religion in Rwanda. Besides, given the country’s history with the church and the genocide, I would not recommend making your own personal religious beliefs the framework for Rwanda’s legal system. If people want to use prostitutes or they want to be adulterers, it should be of no concern to him. Just because you and I are not into those things, does not give us cause to legislate non-criminal lifestyles of our fellow Rwandans. Try to loosen up a little bit. Dayo Ntwari **************************** Adultery is a breach of contract between two parties and for the religious an affront to God, it is not however, a crime to society. Thus, while it can be and often is a civil case, it should not be a criminal one. The law should not be used as a tool to enforce the word of God but to protect the rights of all individuals. The reason you have not seen complaints against this law is primarily because the law is archaic and hardly ever prosecuted. However, there have been instances where people are arrested and in those instances, there have been lots of complaints. Look at this from a more practical point of view: the State has to spend money on every prosecuted and incarcerated individual — can you imagine the cost we will be incurring trying to police people’s personal relationships? AA **************************** The New Times’ usually excellent headline writers have fallen short in this case. Adultery and prostitution have not been so much legalized as decriminalized; kudos to Dayo Ntwari for using the right term. As much as I believe, from my personal perspective, both adultery and abortion to be morally wrong, the law is the wrong tool to address them. That should be the preserve of the pulpit and the home. The law should never be used to impose anyone’s moral preferences over those who do not subscribe to them. In Rwanda we have already experienced the tyranny of the clergy from the day the White Fathers arrived on the scene, through their role in the exiling of King Musinga, Monseigneur Perraudin’s central role in the destruction of Rwandan society and the forced exile of thousands of Rwanda’s children all the way to the clergy’s widespread involvement in the Genocide. Keep morality out of law-making. MweneKalinda
