The Weekly Editorial

In a country where thousands of schoolgirls, some as young as eight years, fall pregnant every year with many of these child mothers contracting HIV in the process, it was just a matter of time before the government was pushed to do what it is now planning — distributing condoms to schoolchildren.

Draft proposals gazetted last month will see the government distributing male and female condoms to boys and girls doing grades 7 to 12. Even younger kids doing grades 4 to 6 — that is small girls aged between nine and 12 who have barely developed breasts and little boys yet to break the voice – they too will get their share.

The new plans meant to combat child pregnancy and HIV infections will also see the government stepping up sex education in schools, making it mandatory beginning from early primary all the way to high school.

As would be expected the plans have split public opinion with as many experts, religious and cultural groups, child rights activists and ordinary folks opposed to the proposals just as there are those that see them as one of the most progressive policy proposals to come from the government in many years.

Those supporting the government upping its education budget not to buy books but to buy condoms say it is the only way to go given the ever increasing numbers of children dropping out of school because they are pregnant or because they are sick with AIDS they did get through parent-to-child transmission but acquired through their own action.

Indeed the figures make a compelling case. Only earlier this year the ministry of basic education disclosed in parliament that more than 20 000 school girls – among them 717 in primary school — fell pregnant between April 2013 and March 2014. This mortifying statistic alone should silence any critic of the government’s plans.

But those that have spoken against the condoms plan have equally compelling arguments. They have said that adding a sex shop function to our schools so that our boys and girls will not only get education from there but their next supply of condoms as well is to virtually say to the youngsters: it is alright to sleep with each other as long as none of you gets infected with an STD or falls pregnant.

The condoms plan, they say, is nothing more than an ill-thought out and clumsy attempt to deal with the problem of teenage pregnancies.

Despite firm assurances by education officials that distribution of condoms would not be done haphazardly, that it will be carefully targeted and done in a private and tightly controlled way, critics of the plan say there is so much that could go wrong.

After all government programmes – not only in South Africa but the world over — are known to be problematic when it comes to implementation, they say.

But unfortunately both those supporting the government plan and those against it totally miss the point, which is that teenagers rushing to sleep with each or whether they use protection while doing so is not and should never ever be the worry of the government.

Put differently, flood schools with condoms or make them condom-free zones you are still not solving the problem. The children will still sleep with each other and in other cases with people way older than them.

It is not about condoms. It is about the collapse of the family unit in South Africa and the social values system that only mothers and fathers — and certainly not government bureaucrats– can teach children.

The government can only complement the efforts of the parent but it could never substitute the fathers and mothers of this country in deciding how our children are raised.

Indeed, the big question crying out for an answer is: where is the South Africa parent in all this?

The real reason we have so many of our children fornicating, indulging in drugs and caught up in crime is not because of government policies or laws – whether good or bad.

The reason is because we have allowed the very basic unit upon which all successful nations and societies are built to collapse – the family.

Parents and nobody else have the first responsibility to teach their children what is good and right. This is on us South Africans. It is not the government’s job.

Some will argue that this is an archaic view in this global village where no one could ever control what their children are exposed to. They are probably right.

But we insist: parenting is something that was meant to be done by mothers and fathers and certainly never to be outsourced to the government.