Girls deserve some respect - Madam Gender Minister

By: Papa Appiah

I am shocked, that of all the trials our women have to endure in our chauvinist society, our gender minister, of all people, should find it necessary to justify the raping of women, if they just happen to be wearing a skirt an inch or so too short. And Ghanaian society, including women groups, have all kept quiet about it.

Who decides who qualifies to be raped in our country? Where is the law on what length of skirt a woman has to wear?. How many inches above the knee should our womens' skirts be, in order that our kind horny gentlemen would have mercy on them and not rape them, Madam Gender Minister?

Rape is a criminal offence, almost at par with murder. Women have committed suicide or led lives of misery after being raped. Nobody in their right minds would condone such an act simply because a man happens to be offended by a woman's dress. With all due respect, we are not goats sniffing pheromones in the street. We are human beings capable of self control and of looking away if we don't like what we see.The emphasis should be on educating men to understand, that rape is a criminal offense and there is no justification whatsoever for it

Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that I was offended by men wearing long beards. Would I be justified in attacking them physically. Would our minister make a law on what length of beard men could wear in order that they were not attacked?

Recently, an Assembly in Ghana passed a law, that men who impregnated school girls would be fined 350 gh. Sex with an underage girl is a criminal offence. Are we legalizing paedophilia in Ghana for those who happen to have the right amount of cash? I have not heard the minister say a word about that. That is how lowly we regard our women.

The things that should offend Ghanaians should be the rampant corruption even as we speak the best tongues in the world. We should be offended by the rampant galamsey destroying our environment. We should be offended by the open defecation and the dumping of untreated sewage in the sea and leave our poor women alone. They have enough to contend with as it is.

This is the kind of nonsense we'll get when we appoint semi-illiterate political buffoons like Otiko as ministers. And I'm not going to apologize for that. It's political talk.

Papa Appiah

Lexeve1@icloud.com