Child abuse on the rise

Neglecting your child, thinking that they are okay or worse, assuming that they are okay might be the biggest mistake you could ever make as a parent. Statistics shows that children are most likely to be victims of abuse in South Africa. Child abuse is a problem worldwide, and a growing concern in South Africa. Such abuse constitutes a profound violation of human rights, and has been associated with long-term mental and physical health consequences.

Abuse is not only raising a hand towards a child but goes beyond that. There are many types of abuses; physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and emotional abuse. Physical abuse can be identified by cuts, bruises, burns, abrasions which cannot be explained. Sexual abuse is when an individual is being abused sexually, forced sex whether orally or penetrative.Sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities.

 Emotional child abuse is maltreatment which results in impaired psychological growth and development. It involves words, actions, and indifference.  Abusers constantly reject, ignore, belittle, dominate, and criticize the victims. Emotional abuse can be categorized in the same box as the pull her down syndrome (phd) box. Telling a child that they are not worthy or they are not pretty enough is also abuse.

Kate (18) really hated it when her mom would say: “goodnight baby I will see you in the morning”, because she knew it meant that she will be left alone the entire night will Uncle Patrick. Kate’s mother is a nurse and she works at night. To Kate being left alone with Uncle Patrick meant that she had to play with his private parts and that left her sad and made her uncomfortable.

It all started when Kate was six, when her mother got a job as a nurse and she was forced to be baby sited by Uncle Patrick, mom’s only brother. The night seemed long and Uncle Patrick kept on making Kate touch him and sometimes he would rape her and tell her to keep quiet and Kate being the obedient child that she is, she listened to her uncle.

“Mommy when will you take me to work with you?” these are words Kate often wished she could share with her mother, words so simply yet to Kate they could have freed her from being tortured by her uncle, the monster. Abuse ruined Kate’s life and messed her self esteem and self love.

I remember the first day my uncle made me touch his penis and lick it, it was at night and I was in my pajamas watching TV, my mom had just left for work and he came to me and told me that I was the stupid and that I was not pretty and he knew what I needed, little did I know that he was slowly killing me, tearing the walls of my youth and made me loathe sexual intercourse. How I wished he didn’t touch me, he makes me sick and I can’t forget what he did to me. What he did to me wasn’t right.

I locked my room one night and he called my mom and told her I was being disrespectful and in the morning when she came she was angry. I wanted to tell her what Uncle Patrick what doing to me but because I knew that my mom would not believe me I kept quiet. I let that dog dictate my life, my uncle made me change all that I believed in and lived for.

One day at school Mrs. Williams a Life orientation teacher   asked Kate to remain in class after the class was over and asked her what was going on and Kate being scared of her uncles’ threats lied to Mrs. Williams. Kate wanted to keep the abuse a secret because since growing up her uncle has been telling her to keep quiet and not tell anybody especially not her friends or her teachers. But Mrs. Williams dint buy her story she kept on asking Kate if she was okay until one day Kate broke down in tears and told the whole truth. It was five years later since the Uncle Patrick had raped her. Mrs. Williams told Kate’s mother what was going on, of course Kate’s mother was shocked, they went to the police station and reported the matter to the police. Patrick was arrested for child abuse, rape and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

This is Kate’s story, not the first and certainly not the last. Abuse is real and it is high time we as people did something. How many children are going to be abused for us to see that it is real? How many children must die before we woke up and heard their loud silences?

Kate is one of many children that are abused daily, if we as a nation stand together as one and reach out to our children and teach more about abuse then we will be a happy growing nation.

Her entire childhood Kate wondered why uncle was doing what he was doing to her; at times she wanted to die. The signs were there but no one except Mrs. Williams seemed to know or care to understand why she was a quiet shy kid, her mother was too busy attending her patients and assumed that her only child was okay.

Abuse messes with your future; you are a different person after you're abused. If you are a victim of any kind of abuse it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault that others hurt you. I can't even begin to imagine the horrific things that Kate had to go through.

Let’s stand together and break the child abuse cycle! Lets Awareness On Behalf Of The Most Vulnerable Members of Society!

THE LITTLE ‘’BIG’’ THINGS WE TAKE FOR GRANTED

Lesedi Mbipha shares a snack of her thoughts on the importance of family in one’s life

Looking at life with an everyday-“I am busy” or “got to get this done” eye can cheat you of the pleasures and beauty that life offers in each day.

While I visited my parents I realised how I allowed myself to focus on all the things I thought were tiring and boring bluntly turning a blind eye to detail. I realised that as I grow there are things that used to irritate me that I miss about my family like those debates my little sister and I dearest used to have while mom drinks her 4pm cup of tea- the 12^th  time of the day if I am not mistaken. Tea also makes a great part of our debates.

“Technology has come to destroy our indigenous way of life” that is how it would usually start, with one incident on the television and there… my sister and I are at it. Poor Ma, she always plays the referee all the time.

She would start on social networks knowing very well that they are a great part of my everyday life. “People no longer read books let alone magazines, people think knowing how to operate computers makes them literate but..” and then obesity follows , seeing that our youngest sister is a little meaty that a person her age is expected to be.

I would defend our little sister by saying she is the most flexible and active kid I know-not that, it would cut the debate any shorter. The intellectual in her is starting to unleash and she is becoming more confident in her facts, I am glad I told her about the debate team when she started high school last year.

The ugly truth about life

They always say: if you want things done right, do them yourself but there are things that not even the highest sitting president in the world has authority over. This brings back the sad memories of a year after losing my father thinking I could have done something to stop him from driving that afternoon, well it’s only when I got to tertiary that I realised that when God wants his way no one can stand in the way.

When my mother remarried I felt she just wanted to replace the one man that I know loved us and respected us so much…after I got hurt a couple of times I realised love is what mattered, after all she had to hang to it after being granted a second chance at it.

I look back and to think one thought this man was a substitute… but hey substitutes are not bad after all, they just missed the first part of the game. However, they are still fresh and have the energy to run till the last whistle is blown.

My pillar of strength  

Visiting home for a week made it all seem appropriate it just kicked into my head the courage that I think I had lost while trying too hard to be what I want to see myself as in the future. “You sometimes don’t have to try so hard, deal with what is in front of you to get to the other side” that’s Ma giving me one of her lines that seem to be engraved in my mind and always pop out when I need her.

Just like her mother, my adorable grandmother she has grown to be the glue that keeps the family together as clichéd as that may sound it’s true. If I could be half of what she is I would be happy. She deals with my not-so-easy to deal with dad who at times makes me feel like screaming, then my little sister who has the lately developed the “I will do it later syndrome”, and then my youngest sister who cries over every little thing and has the energy of an athlete…tiring if you ask me. She still has her job to still attend to the family and well, me.

This to other people is just another family but to me they are my source of inspiration, my rock. My friends have often called me a mama’s baby at times I am glad I am, and when they say I would kill myself if my mother was to pass on, I look at them and say: I would celebrate her life and take with me what she teaches me in everyday.

I do not blame them, my friends, they do not understand to me they are like people who come to console you after you have lost a loved one claiming they understand your pain yet they have never lost a thing not even a pat. I now treasure every moment for there is almost nothing that measures to the love that my family poses for me, except for those days when I am with the apple of my eye.