Together we are responsible for our children!

It is Thursday just after 06:00 and I am on a train on my way to work. My phone went of trice already, so I decided to check what is so important.

Two of the messages are from a source, in the one he mentions the body of a child was found and in the second he confirms it is that of Tazne van Wyk.

For a few seconds I just sit quiet and pray: “Kyrie Eleison”.

During the day I occasionally read the comments on social media. We are all upset, furious and want answers!

Death penalty is raised, Bundu-courts, taking the law into our own hands and we need more prisons, is what many are saying.

It is on my way home that I tell myself and eventually share on my social media platforms – the death penalty is not the answer to the rape and murder in our country. The two crimes are as old as humanity it has been here long before us and will likely be here long after us.

As for building of prisons, I feel it is an indirect encouragement for crime. We already sit with a shortage of classrooms, why thus want more prisons?

What we do need is classrooms. We need to tackle the social challenges in our communities. Social programmes need to be revised and improved, especially those aimed on the youth.

In parts of the Western Cape there are youth cafes. The programmes presented there need to be revised and need to accommodate programs addressing the specific needs in that community. It is clear that the one approach for all is not working.

We, the people who live in this country, are the answer. The day we stop to protect criminal elements and perpetrators of domestic violence, looking the other way, that is when we are addressing the actual problem.

When we come forward with information and call out the names of those guilty, then we implement something far bigger and better than the death penalty.

How many don’t hear the conversations when walking by of a guy boasting how his girl jumps when he talks.

How many don’t hear how a girl confides in a friend about her boyfriend or husband who raised his hand for her by accident.

It happens once and then again and again and again. It becomes such a habit that when something happens to her those around them will say: “no it happened regularly.”

The day you hear it the first time and call out the name of the perpetrator, that is when you give the deed the death penalty.

Then there is the matter of just quickly sending your child to the shop, across the road or just down the street. One of the train buddies best summarise the feeling as: “If I cannot walk myself, then I can sit without it.”

The week Tazne van Wyk’s body was discovered two other girls, Nabeelah Begg (16) from Bonteheuwel and Mishaney Jansen (14) from Oudtshoorn, were reported missing.

It is also just each time a child goes missing or is raped and/or murdered that there is an outcry. Then we remember Lekita Moore, Rene Roman, Courtney Peters, Stacha Arends, Stracey Adams, Kaithlyn Wilson, Lache Stols, Aqeel Davids, Ezra Daniels, Shamonique Claasen, Jeremiah Ruiters and many others.

The shortcut is then chosen, and government blamed. But when did we as society fail?

We need to do better. We need to act quicker and sooner.

You and me and everyone around us are and should be the answer.

• Original was published in Afrikaans on Thursday 27 February 2020 in Paarl Post as Post Scriptum

Raising your child with love is better than Spanking

In October 2013 the then social development minister, Bathabile Dlamini, hit a nerve when she said her department will look at drafting a bill making it illegal to spank your child, in the comfort of your own home – this could lead to parents soon being charged for assault if they smack their child’s bottom with a flat hand or use any form of corporal punishment at home.

Dlamini said if a husband beats his wife, it is a crime, but if a parent hits a helpless child, it is not illegal.

I’m sure the honourable minister did not wake up that Sunday morning with a sermon on the radio, TV or her head telling her let the children come to me, but that she realised the outcry by so many abuse children.

Taking into consideration that it is government’s task to protect the children of our country with laws, and then yes I could easily support the possible proposed Anti-Spanking Law. But taking into consideration that corporal punishment is prohibited in our schools since 2006 and the current discipline amongst school learners since then, I doubt if I could support minister Dlamini.

The draft law is being considered so parents don’t end up killing their children and believe it or not but there are parts in our country where certain parents believe they have to discipline their child until there is blood. You and I would both agree that is abuse, but clearly not in the eyes of that parent. I find it highly unlikely that in such case a three year old would go to the police to report their parent and lay assault charges. Chances are that incident will instead repeat itself.

Dlamini was correct when she said parents have a responsibility to raise their children with proper values. The how they do this would differ.

I got a good hiding, even if I as much as talk back to my parents. I remember being a toddler and by accident hitting my sister (two years younger than I were) with a broomstick. Boy oh boy the spank I got was no accident. Homework had to be done and you had to help your neighbour or the slipper will meet your bum.

We need to face reality and be honest. Spanking a child can leave that child with a life long scar. This is something we cannot determine now but will only reveal itself years later, too late to regret that you did not stop when you heard the cries: "No mommy/daddy, no..."

I'm sure all parents at some stage make the promise to raise their child in and with love, not spanking and with abuse.
I am against South Africa becoming a nanny-state, especially with a government telling me how to raise my child but I am more so against the abuse of a minor. 

Yes spanking 20-years ago was good, but disciplining a child became abusing a child. I firmly believe you can discipline a child without touching the child, by simply loving that child.

A child will most likely listen when a parent, still in a firm strict voice, speaks with love and not threaten to spank and cast fear.

The Afrikaans-saying “Buig die boompie terwyl dit nog jonk is” does not refer to spanking your child, but raising your child in values with love.