Yesterday, I saw a lady whose nine-year-old daughter was raped three months ago. We talked about how she felt now that the man who had taken away her child’s innocence had been convicted and given a life sentence.
“I feel like something heavy has been lifted from my heart,” she told me. No longer did she need to fear that this monster would be released to threaten her family and other little girls in her community. For he was also found guilty of raping a three-year-old, another mother’s child.
It’s hard sometimes to remain objective in the face of such horrific behaviour. My emotional being is glad that this pervert is no longer on our streets, but my rational being wonders what pain this young man must have suffered in his past to react in this way.
For I know that he witnessed the murder of his mother when he was only 14. He never received counselling to help him cope with the anger and the fear and the hopelessness. And he is not alone.
Countless children around South Africa live with anger and fear. The government needs to employ thousands of social workers and counsellors rather than police officers. It makes me angry to think that they rely on fund-starved NGOs to fill this gaping hole.
It’s way past time to focus on preventing crimes rather than mopping up the mess afterwards.
New York went from a violent, crime-ridden city that everybody had given up for lost, to one of the cleanest and safest. How? Stand on a NY street, close your eyes and turn around a few times, open your eyes and you will be looking directly at a policeman or police car. I lost my mother as a child and was subsequently abused by my stepmother. Far from receiving help or counselling, the abuse was denied by the family, only too "grateful" my father was being looked after, and reprimanding me for wanting to rock the boat when I tried to bring the abuse to anyone's attention. Crime is not the result of tragic personal histories. Crime happens because there are bad people (like my abuser) who know they can get away with it. My stepmother had no tragic history to justify abusing a helpless child. And I never used my experience as an excuse to harm others.
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