Six minors left on their own in Marongwane Village
The kids were left to fend for themselves in a dilapidated shack with no food for 20 days, while their mother was stuck in Gauteng after she went there to find work.
A desperate 36-year-old mother of six small children said she had no option but to leave them on their own in Marongwane Village outside Hazyview to go to Gauteng to find work.
The kids were left to fend for themselves in a dilapidated shack with no food for 20 days, and had to beg for food. Sometimes they would go to bed on empty stomachs.
According to one of the older children, “Our home situation has been bad for a long time. The shack we are living in is not in a good condition; we sometimes find snakes under our beds, and we are lucky we were not bitten by them. Our mother left a day before Good Friday and told us she was going to town and that she would come back.
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“Since then, she has not come back, and we had to beg for food from the neighbours. Some of them will give us the little they have so that we can eat. The school principal will also bring us the leftovers from the school, and we are grateful for that. We are pleading with the members of the public to assist us with some clothes and bedding, since we are approaching winter, but most importantly, we are asking for a better house that is safe.”
Meanwhile, the mother, whom we cannot name to protect the identity of the minors, said she had left for Gauteng after she was promised a job, but when she got there, it was no longer available and she did not have money to return home.
“I only managed to get help after someone saw a Facebook post that my kids were looking for me, claiming that I had left home for church, which was wrong. I had no choice but to leave them alone because I am an orphan. I had no one, since my parents passed away and the people who raised me kicked me out of the place I used to call home. My effort to get a RDP house was denied more than three times due to my age. I then opted to look for a job that I was too unlucky to find,” she said.
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She does regret leaving the kids alone, but the situation forced her to do that. She is pleading with local businesses and local government to build her a house or give her any job so that she can provide for her kids, since their father had disappeared and is not helping her. She is receiving social support, but said it is not enough.
She also confirmed that after the social media post, local businesses donated some food, and representatives from the provincial government visited them to see how they could help her and her kids. However, they are still pleading for any help that they can get to better their lives.
