Children too young to read or comprehend its message “Please don’t kill us” and “Respect our bodies” held onto their posters as they stood in Military Road, Steenberg, on Wednesday 1 June during National Child Protection Week.
Organiser of the event Berenice Blaauw, Director of the Village Care, Youth and Aged Centre in Lavender Hill, said there is a great concern for the well-being of children in the community.
“Children’s lives matter, as our banner says we are very concerned that our children are not really being cared for. I live in Montagu Village, and every day our children are being killed, children are being raped and there are just horrific things going on. This is why we also have a drop-in centre for children living on the streets.”
She added it was the third day the group was highlighting the plight children face in the community.
“This is our third day in collaboration with Philisa Abafazi Bethu, the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) and the kindergarten. Our main message is: stop killing our children.”
Rose Tsahikalamke, a social worker at the centre, said it provides a safe environment and an ear for listening.
“We are here today to give the community and the world a message that children’s lives matter. There are a lot of children being killed in the community, there are a lot of gangsters. We are here to advocate for all the children.”
Some children are too afraid to go to school due to gang violence, while others are hungry and looking for a meal, she added.
“Our children are affected in the community because there are a lot of shootings, their parents are being shot and there’s a lot of gangsterism. So when the kids come to the centre they are so disturbed they don’t want to go to school because they are afraid, and we take them in and give them love, give them an ear and listen to them.”
Charnice Blaauw, secretary of the centre, said it was very sad to see how young children ended up in harm’s way.
“I work in Lavender Hill and live in Steenberg, and on both sides I am seeing tremendous abuse of children, and it’s so sad,” she related.
“There are children in our communities where the parents walk on one side of the street and the child the other side.
“There are guys that come and just take them (children) into gangsterism because they see the parents don’t care. And that child is the first to get killed and the first to go to jail for that very gangster.”
Blaauw added that communities needed to unite and stand together.
“Come into our areas and see what is happening in front of your eyes. Every single day lives are being lost, every day five-year-old children are walking the streets and being killed and there’s nobody there to bury them. So, we have to come and do these things, it is so sad.”
She says it is heartbreaking to see the children come to the centre on their own for food or help.
“I feel like there is so much ignorance, some of the children who are here, they came by themselves to the shelter, because they want to be safe.
“In my area there’s a little boy who comes to our door every day looking for food. The gangsters are sending him up and down to buy this and that. He is either going to be stolen and killed or he is going to belong to a gang, which he already basically is.
“So if we don’t stand together as a community and say, let’s take this child and let’s help this child in any way that we can, what do we think is going to happen? We can make a difference.”
