Put child safety first
IT IS unfortunate that the spokesperson for the Western Cape premier, Michael Mpofu, chose to respond to the ANC’s five proposals for a safer Western Cape without reading it.
If Mpofu only took the time to go through it, he would have noticed that the ANC is suggesting exactly what he is advising. Instead, due to this ignorance, he then blamed the ANC for “politicking on the serious issue of child murders”.
What did Mpofu expect of the ANC? To keep quiet? Not to get involved?
Unfortunately, the ANC, with around 40 000 members across the Western Cape, has a particular duty to rally its membership in the campaign to create the safer and more secure province, so that our children can grow up and reach their full potential. Our members are community safety volunteers and many have assisted in the search for missing children and consoled parents who lost children
Five-year old Caitlyn Wilson is the 25th girl-child who was murdered in the province since the start of the year by a man who was known to her and her death should justifiably be a wake-up call to all of us and has certainly called the ANC to action.
The five proposals for a safer and more secure Western Cape are crosscutting, and call on all spheres of government and all sectors of society to realise their responsibility towards this goal and to take action.
But in his haste to respond without studying these proposals, Mpofu does not understand that the call for the appointment of a Provincial Commissioner for Children is not “politicking” but a genuine call on the premier of the Western Cape to meet her constitutional obligation to creating a safer province for all children. The appointment of a commission of inquiry would help us dig deeper and bring some interesting insights into why the children of the Western Cape are more vulnerable.
There is an urgent need to improve the police-to-population ratio in particularly the City of Cape Town and we cannot blame the provincial government for it, but will instead engage with the national police authorities to address this matter.
And similarly, calling for the return of the Bambananis and the closer co-operation between government and civil society are essentially a call to involve more community members in this much-needed campaign to make the Western Cape safer for all.
But if using the death of a child as a wake-up call to all is politicking, let us politick for a safer and more secure Western Cape for all our children.