THE pictures of prostitutes on the rampage (The Herald, May 6 2015) apparently celebrating an earlier constitutional court ruling are revolting. They represent the worst that our august Zimbabwe is burdened with. Such behaviour, such women and the men who prostitute with them do not represent our dream of the Zimbabwe we wanted and planned to build after driving out the British armed colonisers. Wherever the comrades operated, they fought prostitution. They punished prostitutes just as they punished sell-outs and witches. The comrades were a cleansing force and prostitutes were identified as an evil that was contradictory to the goals of our liberation. One of the eight points of attention which guided us during the liberation struggle was: ‘Tisaite choupombwe muhondo yeChimurenga!’ Surely we would be foolish to say: Tisaite choupombwe muhondo yeChimurenga, but in a free Zimbabwe prostitution can flourish. This stance against prostitution is one of the principles which so endeared the freedom fighters to our people throughout Zimbabwe, because at the core of our culture as Zimbabweans moral rectitude is crucial, we would never have won the war of liberation if the comrades had been prostitutes. Our people, our ethos reject prostitution as a virulent cancer which is inimical to our very humanity and therefore our very future as a people. Saka takanzwisisana ipapa kuti ndizvo zvinoda vanhu vedu nesuwo ndizvo zvataida, ndizvo zvatinoda. There was no confusion about that. It is so sad sometimes what happens. One hears, especially from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) sponsored by the West, selective condemnation of perverts. They condemn pedophiles, child abusers, those who raise and or abuse women, but they do not condemn prostitution or chingochani (homosexuality). This reveals that they truly are not interested in the eradication of these evils (which at any rate are rampant in their mother countries), that their stance is a political gimmick. Anyone who means to eradicate these evils would acknowledge that they draw from the same band of moral rot and like cancer any tumour that is ignored will spread and destroy the host. It does not take much to cross from one perversion to the next, sometimes it is just a question of following the line of least resistance. A rapist will look for a child when it is too difficult to trap an adult woman, and should girl children seem too dangerous a prey, they just might turn to little boys. Hosts of such perversions have sunk so low, all they want is to satisfy their strange evil desires at all costs. A child born to a prostitute is likely to end up a victim of child abuse, is likely to become a prostitute herself or himself. These are therefore double standards. Prostitution is a form of sexual perversion, there is nothing normal about it, humans are not dogs, God made a very clear distinction. Man is a moral being not an animal. At this point it is thus important to acknowledge that the devil has spewed the worst of its rot on to our streets with renewed vigour. What do I say to my child when it encounters such? Are the rights of my child to mature into a wholesome Zimbabwean protected? Who protects my child from such evil trauma as it tries to grow into a proper person? Where shall we hide our children? Tofambira kupi? Shall we be refugees in the land of our birth? If you took these shamefully shocking pictures home, kumusha where the custodians of Zimbabwe live, our grandmothers and mothers would look down on the ground, they would not be able to face such violation of our morality, even our fathers and grandfathers would not take it, they would ask: “Ko munotitukirei?” The evil immorality which purports that prostitution is a form of work is part of the Western capitalist ethos in which the body, especially that of the woman can be exchanged for cash. We are Africans, not West Europeans. Prostitution is part of the bandit cultures of Western Europe which are responsible for atrocities such as the one against Sarah Baartman. Such atrocities are a child of prostitutious cultures in which nothing is sacred anymore, nothing is meaningful. Are we to allow ourselves also to sink to the bottom of the cesspool? In African society and here in Zimbabwe, womanhood is the custodian of everything so special in a people, the woman is the custodian of the morality, the values, the ethics, she is mother. That is why in our society, a man pays lobola, what he is saying is ‘ndawana chikoshi,’ ‘I have found the treasure my soul has been searching for,’ ‘I have found my mother, the source of my life, the source of my family’, ‘Svovi yangu,’ that is why the wife is Mai so and so. Mai is the source of life, the protector of life. Ukaputsa mai hapana chinosara, baba, senior as he is vanosara varipachena, vasina ushingisi. That is why for us Africans, when womanhood breaks down and surrenders to prostitution, something has gone irrevocably wrong, there is nothing to salvage. Madhimoni ezvipunha have been unleashed on us, haana shingiso pakati perudzi rwedu, no true son or daughter of Zimbabwe can be at peace with such. When everything has been said and done, there is something very fundamental to remember: We are in the process of building a Great Zimbabwe, and prostitution can never contribute anything to this precious edifice, can never be part of Great Zimbabwe, the great nation fortress. Chifevi chinoputsa, hachivaki Zimbabwe. Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.