Stop sexual predators roaming our streets, says teen
JOBURG – Teenage girl says Youth Day is meaningless for as long as sexual predators freely roam the streets.
A teenage girl stunned her audience which included retired Constitutional Court Judge Edwin Cameron with her intellect and incisiveness about issues affecting the youth today.
This was at a handover of goodie bags full of cosmetic products from leading beauty products manufacturer Avon Justine to Guild Cottage Children’s Home in Parktown West on 17 June. The handover was conducted by the company’s commercial marketing director Momin Hukamdad and Cameron, who is a patron of the home.
The 16-year-old teenage girl, who cannot be named as she is a resident of the home that houses abused and sexually molested girls, had asked for a platform to thank everyone for the donations.
The teenager said she was perturbed by the hoorah around Youth Day and Youth Month. “To me, there is no reason why I should celebrate this day, as many of my peers fall victim to gender-based violence and femicide. They are being killed, raped and maimed by sexual predators.
“We need to act decisively to stop this from happening as it not only destroys our value system but our very own future leaders in the process. Our gay and lesbian community members now live in fear of being killed for their sexual orientation. What is there to celebrate,” she asked.
Cameron said they had come to the home bearing gifts as part of an effort to soothe hearts as ‘we know you have experienced pain and hardships of various forms in the past’.
“We know it shouldn’t be like that in your lives, but we hope you will manage to overcome the predicament.”
The judge outlined what he described as ‘trying times’ in his life when he suppressed his feelings and got married to a woman when, in actual fact, he was inclined to have relationships with men.
“I finally removed these shackles when I divorced my wife and I then listened to my inclinations and started dating men. This was during difficult times in our history as a country before the dawn of democracy where black people and gay and lesbians were denigrated. The divorce finally happened under the new dawn and I then went public with my sexual orientation.”
He called for the strong protection of gay, lesbian, transgender and the queer members of ‘our’ community just like any other members of the community.
