Police encourage kids to break the silence

BURGERSFORT- The endless efforts to end the sexual abuse of children continued last Friday, June 6, at Twinkle Kids crèche.

The local SAPS organised a crime awareness campaign with the theme”Break the silence”. It consisted of three main elements, advocacy, raising awareness as well as behaviour and social change. It also served as part of Child Protection Week awareness.

The event was attended by local pastors, members of the department of health and social development, the Burgersfort Youth Against Crime group, community policing forum (CPF) representatives and teachers from various circuits in Sekhukhune.

Organiser of the campaign, Const Victoria Maluleke, described the situation surrounding child sexual abuse as a “silent emergency” while calling on church and community leaders to break the perpetual norm as silence was no longer an option.

She noted that recent figures indicated that a lot of children were exposed to some form of sexual abuse.

“We deal with cases where children are raped and physically abused, and the families choose not to report the cases as the perpetrators are either uncles or fathers who are breadwinners in their respective families. Let’s break the silence and report any form of abuse. This will be the only way to curb it.”

Maluleke added, “People know about these abuses, but fail, for whatever reasons, to report the incidents because they see such cases as taboo subjects.”

She reiterated that the campaign would serve to teach the lesson that there were no innocent bystanders as everyone had a responsibility to ensure the protection of children’s rights.

The “Break the silence” campaign featured musical renditions; poems, and dramas performed by the foundation phase learners, all the activities formed part of the topic. Nine schools participated and Mangabane Primary School was awarded the first prize, followed by Ikhwezi Lokusa and St Thomas College came third, the three schools were each awarded with trophies.

The audience also heard from the Tubatse circuit manager, Mr Solly Lingwati who added his voice to denounce the evils of child abuse in all its forms.

Tubatse cluster commander Brig Sylvia Ledwaba encouraged child abuse victims to “speak out and end the silence. “ These criminals sometimes infect the children win HIV/Aids, and impregnate them, this results in lasting devastating psychological effects as well as undermines their potential to succeed in life,” she said.

She also had a message to the perpetrators, “please stop what you’re doing because you are hurting a lot of people.”