A Stitch in Haste

...so long as barbarism such as this is allowed to continue:

In the hours after James Mbewe was laid to rest three years ago, in an unmarked grave not far from here, his 23-year-old wife, Fanny, neither mourned him nor accepted visits from sympathizers. Instead, she hid in his sister's hut, hoping that the rest of her in-laws would not find her.

But they hunted her down, she said, and insisted that if she refused to exorcise her dead husband's spirit, she would be blamed every time a villager died. So she put her two small children to bed and then forced herself to have sex with James's cousin.
...
Here and in a number of nearby nations including Zambia and Kenya, a husband's funeral has long concluded with a final ritual: sex between the widow and one of her husband's relatives, to break the bond with his spirit and, it is said, save her and the rest of the village from insanity or disease. Widows have long tolerated it, and traditional leaders have endorsed it, as an unchallenged tradition of rural African life.

Now AIDS is changing that. Political and tribal leaders are starting to speak out publicly against so-called sexual cleansing, condemning it as one reason H.I.V. has spread to 25 million sub-Saharan Africans, killing 2.3 million last year alone.

Now, we're obviously a long way from "White Man's Burden" and no one wants to invite still more cries of "Western Imperialism" or "American Hegemony" or whatever hip expressions the kids are using these days.

Still, and with all due respect, somebody needs to grab a pledge paddle and start whacking these people on the behind with a loud "Stop That!"

Otherwise we're going to "respect" these "indigenous peoples" right into extinction.

And of course, while we're whacking bottoms, we need to line up the Catholic Church in Africa for extra special spankings for their medieval views on condoms.