Family from Standerton demands answers after son is taken to initiation school
Relatives have been told to pay up R3 800 before Justine Rossouw will be returned home.
The Rossouw family is demanding answers about who authorised the initiation of their relative, Justine Rossouw, without the family’s consent.
According to the family, the incident came to light on the morning of July 4 when they tried to contact Justine by cellphone.
Instead of speaking to him, an unknown man answered the call and informed them that Justine was at an initiation school near Balfour.
Justine’s cousin, Charmain Rossouw, said the family immediately questioned how he had ended up at the school, insisting that they had never granted permission because initiation is not part of their family’s culture, but the man alleged that Justine came to the school and wanted to be initiated.
“When we asked him how my cousin ended up there without our permission, he told us that it doesn’t matter because anyone can go to initiation if they want to, regardless of their race or culture,” said Rossouw.
She said the family demanded that Justine be returned home, but the man allegedly told them they would have to pay R3 800 to get him back.
“I told him to bring my cousin back because they never got permission from us. He then said if we wanted our child back, we had to pay R3 800,” she said.
Rossouw further alleged that representatives from the initiation school later visited the family’s home.
However, they arrived without Justine and allegedly informed the family that he had already been initiated and could not return home until he had completed the initiation process.
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“As a family, we still have questions about who gave them permission to initiate my cousin and who is going to pay the costs because we don’t have the money.
We have made it clear that we will not pay because we cannot afford it.
The person who took Justine to the initiation school without our consent should be responsible for those costs,” said Rossouw.
The family’s allegations come shortly after the Mpumalanga Initiation Task Team, working with the South African Police Service (SAPS), conducted an operation on July 3 in Grootvlei, Balfour, where an illegal initiation school was shut down.
During the operation, a woman was arrested for allegedly taking boys to an initiation school without their parents’ permission.
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