The time has come to stop breeding little monsters

To think that within two decades of attaining democracy we’ve ‘elevated’ our status to that of one of the most violent and corrupt nations on the continent.

The horrendous headlines of the past fortnight, both in the country’s newspapers and on radio networks, have revealed our violent nature towards those most vulnerable in our society – women and children. And in the past few weeks, young women and children seem to have borne the brunt of our aggression.

Many of these victims of male aggression and violence were not only severely battered and raped, but their lifeless bodies were even burnt beyond recognition and left in dumping sites and open velds, where they were not expected to be found. These were young women with high hopes and a bright future ahead of them.

To count their numbers and mention their names as the gruesome details of their violent deaths emerged daily in the past fortnight would be to rub salt in the wounds of their families.

But be that as it may, we need to stop this violence against women and children in its tracks.

As a nation, we cannot continue to sit back and watch as young women and children are violated and abused in this fashion. To stop the femicide, we need to start raising our children, both boys and girls, in a better way than we seem to be doing right now.

We need to stop creating violent and aggressive little ‘heroes’ and ‘heroines’ who think they can do no wrong when they grow up.

We also need to look at the images we feed their innocent minds on our television networks on a daily basis. We all know how easy it is to mould and influence young minds. Some of the programmes on national television and radio networks leave much to be desired.

We need to be more caring and careful in how we portray ourselves as adults, especially in the presence of young children. The things that we do as adults, whether they be wrong or right, will always have an impact on those who look up to us for love and guidance – our children.

It is in fact these social ills and habits of adult society that have the most negative impact on our children. Perhaps as adults, parents and guardians of your young, we need to start now to live our lives in an exemplary manner that will make a positive impact on our children.

We applaud the police for the recent arrest of suspects believed to members of a vehicle hijacking syndicate in Gauteng.

The actions of these car thieves has brought untold misery to car owners around the townships, who had their vehicles forcefully and violently taken away from. We take our hats off to the police for a job well done.