Children’s suffering is a sad indictment

At this time of year, with the family gatherings, the presents, the food, it should bring us out of our gloom to remember the wonder we used to feel, as kids, when the festive season descended.

Can you remember the joy, the surprise, the contentment? Even in the most humble of family abodes, this is possible.

But, sadly, the December-January holidays are just as dangerous for children – if not more so – than the rest of the year.

As a nation, South Africans need to hang their heads in shame about how violence is affecting all our children.

They are raped, abused and murdered at such a rate that the international World Vision charity has declared violence against children in this country as a national disaster.

Figures put before parliament showed 41% of all rape cases in the last three years involved children and that 2 600 children were murdered in the same period.

The Birth to Twenty Plus study, which has been tracking the lives of more than 2 000 children in Soweto from birth to 22, showed that a horrifying 99% of them had been exposed to direct or indirect violence.

If we continue like this we face a future of blood and brutality.

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