My boss moved with his family, to Cape Town about 2 years ago. He says he knew a couple of people who had been killed in hijackings and robberies in Johannesburg and he felt very unsafe here. So he moved to the Cape and says he feels much, much safer there. Albeit people do get killed there as well, Cape Town obviously has the right PR machine going which gives the residents a feeling of well being – good for them.
But here’s the thing – you have more chance of being killed, beaten up, raped and abused by your nearest and dearest, someone you know….by someone who is really close to you. Scary isn’t it.
At the mo, we are having 16 days of activism against women and child abuse. How does this activism help – well I don’t know but I certainly hope it makes people aware of the appalling levels of women and child violence and abuse in our country. We can bemoan the fact that there is a lot of crime in SA but the real nitty gritty scourge of violence against women and children is seldom given the same emotive outpourings as a robbery or hijacking. I don’t see people picketing for the death penalty for baby/child rapists….. and nor do I hear of people leaving town because women and children are being abused and killed in their neighborhood by their nearest and dearest, those closest to them.
The stats say that one in four women in this country will be raped. I don’t know what the figures are for wife and child killings, violent beatings and maiming. These crimes are not reported separately by the police; they are lumped into the general category of murder and assault with intent etc. And bear in mind that the crimes are only recorded when someone reports a rape or assault or even a killing for that matter.
Rudi Giuliani launched the broken window campaign in New York city which seemed to have fixed not only the city, but the psyche of the people living there. We need a campaign to fix the psyche of our people….that it’s just not ok to beat the hell out of your wife and kids, not so lekker to rape babies, children and women, and it really is not right to kill your wife and kids, hack up the neighbour’s kid up for muti, kill the chick next door or the woman down the road because she said no. And nor is it ok to ‘accident’ little kids just because you don’t want to pay maintenance – chilling!
Have you ever wondered what the diagnosis would be if the country of South Africa was given a psychiatric evaluation? Would it be something like: psychopath with paranoid schizophrenic tendencies?
A society is extremely sick when some of the most vulnerable people in it are not safe. It is very sick when we still hear comments like: well she asked for it; I wonder what she did to cause him to do that; the dress she was wearing was too short. What do you say, or what reasons do you give for a small child who can’t speak yet?
With this kind of violence, the appalling levels of crime against women and children why aren’t making more of a fuss…..why aren’t we ratting to the cops on wife beaters and the filthy sods who are raping their small kids every night. We can’t keep quiet and say this isn’t our business. It is our business.
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