Times Of Swaziland: CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS SAY NO  TO PRISONERS ENGAGING IN SEX

CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS SAY NO  TO PRISONERS ENGAGING IN SEX
================================================================================
BY NTOMBI MHLONGO on 12/04/2017 09:09:00


LOBAMBA – Correctional Services officers cannot bear the thought of  watching
prisoners enjoying passionate moments with their spouses.
As a result, they have opposed the idea to allow prisoners conjugal rights.
This transpired during the Senate Portfolio Committee workshop where the
warders’ association made its submissions for the Correctional Services Bill
No.2 of 2015.
According to the association, officers have a duty of ensuring security at local
rehabilitation facilities and cannot allow prisoners to have ‘passionate
fun’ with their spouses as this would be risky.
“Since our job is to ensure security, we normally monitor and watch when
relatives visit and chat with prisoners. But we cannot then watch them when they
have sexual intercourse because this would be invading their privacy,” said
the association’s Secretary General’, Mzwandile Dlamini.
Dlamini highlighted that it would be dangerous to give prisoners the freedom to
enjoy conjugal rights as it would lead to bad activities.
“Imagine allowing a couple to enjoy themselves and then you come back and
discover that things ended badly with one killing the other. It is possible that
while you think they are enjoying themselves they could be actually fighting,
which would leave one dead,” Dlamini said.
Even though yesterday’s session was not a debate, most of the senators got
heated by the issue and pleaded with the committee chairperson, Prince Fipha, to
allow them to have a say.
It was Senator Chief Mvimbi who was more vocal on the issue as he argued that
there were prisoners who were sentenced to around 30 years and needed to have
some loving moments with their loved ones. He said it did not make sense that a
man would spend over 20 years in prison without being allowed the opportunity to
make babies with his wife. “Some prisoners even have more than three wives and
it is their duty to satisfy them sexually and make babies with them. Just
because someone is in prison does not mean that they are no longer human. They
still have needs like everyone else,” he said. Moving against the idea was
Senator Princess Phumelele, who said the issue of conjugal rights made many
Swazis wonder as to what the real meaning of prisoner was.
She mentioned that prisons were meant to correct individuals and argued that
allowing them to make children while in their prison cells was not the right
path.