Killing our children

Comment

As we all hold our breath in prayer hoping that missing Babongiwe Vilakati is found alive and also trying to come to terms with yet another reported case of a child suddenly gone missing, we ought to open ourselves up to the reality that the lack of safety for our children warrants serious attention.

We have every reason to worry in a country that will never be forgotten for the serial killings that cost the lives of many women and children who left home never to return.
The fact that the latest incidents coincide with the ongoing national elections has unfortunately labelled us as a backward primitive nation that still believes in superstitious rituals to gain popularity, luck and success.
This is certainly not who we are.

What we cannot deny about ourselves, however, is that we are partly responsible for the dozens of children whose files remain unclosed in the missing persons’ cabinets of our cop shops for various reasons for not doing enough to ensure it does not happen.

Abduction of our children who are then drugged, hooked and turned into drug mules, prostitutes or sex slaves almost all have traces of family, relative, friend or community member involvement, who either dropped their guard for one moment too often, granted too much liberty to the young ones or became too trusting of strangers if not plain greedy for self enrichment at the cost of human life.

Our communities are harbouring drug lords as neighbours mind their own business and the law enforcement agencies turn a blind eye, even when they have full knowledge of these criminal activities and their hideouts.

Drugs are killing our children at a larger scale than kidnappers and ritual murderers are but the perpetrators continue to walk free, especially in Manzini where our children are literally ‘walking dead drugged’.
The current status quo suggests we should not be surprised to learn that the suspect kidnapper of Babongiwe is among the men and women who have joined the police in the manhunt.
Sad.

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