IS KUSOMA A CRIME? – LIBUTFO

NGABEZWENI – Is courting and proposing love to a woman against the law?

This was the most posed question during a lecture to regiments on the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence (SODV) Act, at Ngabezweni Royal Residence on Thursday. Over 100 regiments posed this question in retaliation to the information that was given to them. They felt the charge of stalking meant that they could not propose love or court women. Educating the regiments were officers from the director of public prosecutions (DPP) office. The sessions are part of a campaign by the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, to enlighten the nation on the new law.

This is because on a daily basis, local courts address over 50 cases related to the SODV Act. This figure is from various Magistrates Courts in the country. This Act, according to uninformed people is meant to deal with men; however, that is not the case, as women also fall prey to the might of this law. During the interaction with the regiments, the officers from the DPP’s office had to respond to a variety of questions seeking clarity on why the traditional way of courting had suddenly become a thorny issue.
One of the most common ways of courting locally, include following and pestering a female to give in to the love proposal. This may entail following her, telephonically contacting her and visiting her place of abode without her consent.

Pestering

However, according to the SODV Act, if a party is not comfortable with the pestering, the ‘courting male may be charged with stalking’. To this, the regiments inquired if one could be convicted for proposing love to a woman. In addition, they asked if courting a woman was now illegal, as per the dictates of the Act. This they said was because according to their views, the Act prohibited them from courting women. The DPP’s officers were swift to bring clarity to the regiments in connection to their misconception about the Act’s clause on unlawful stalking.

Unacceptable

They disclosed to them that it was not courting women that was prohibited by the Act, but rather, it was courting women in an unacceptable manner that the Act prohibited. This response seemed to have brought clarity to the regiments’ misconception of the Act, that courting was not illegal if it was conducted in an acceptable manner. However, the regiments still had more questions for the officers. One Nyatsi Dlamini posed a question to the DPP officers yet again. Dlamini’s question was structured in an illustrative manner, whereby he illustrated a scenario where he would supposedly be engaged in a sexual relationship with a minor he would have met at a bar, who would be under the age of 18.   His contention sprang from the fact that people under the age of 18 were prohibited from entering a bar. He inquired from the officers as to who was supposed to be taken to task in this situation. According to Dlamini’s point of view, either the owner of the bar or the minor should be convicted; the owner for allowing the minor into a place that she was restricted to enter, or the minor for being found in a restricted zone.

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