We must all act against violence

As he was burying the niece he helped raise, the uncle of Karabo Mokoena made an important plea that we should heed in our fight against the scourge that is domestic violence.

Tshepo Mokoena gave a stern warning to all the mothers and fathers in the packed hall to be vigilant and to discourage their daughters from engaging in transactional relationships.

“When a girl child is unemployed or still in school‚ and she brings all those expensive bags‚ while she isn’t working‚ as a mother‚ because you will always see her first‚ just ask her to return those things where they come from‚” said Mokoena.

Although making an important point, some may dismiss his statement as pandering to a patriarchy that blames the victim.

Over the past few weeks South Africa has been gripped by an unusually high number of women and child murders that highlight the extent of violence suffered by the most vulnerable in our society.

Myriad problems, including lack of or inefficient policing, a lack of government support for abused women and children and a failure of political leadership to tackle this problem – all these continue to create a fertile environment in which abusers can thrive.

Mokoena’s advice should not stop at the parents of potential victims, we should all take heed. To eradicate violence in our communities we should all look to see what part we can play in our households and communities.

Criminals, just like abusers, are the brothers, uncles, fathers and sons we have in our midst. We all know them, and in fact many of their victims have cried out to some of us for help but we did not want to get involved.

Unfortunately the very violent past that we come from has made many people believe that they should not get involved in domestic violence cases.

The recent spike in these horrible events has shown that when a community or family looks the other way when a girl or woman is raped or beaten up, we begin to normalise violence against women and children.

Mokoena’s words should be directed to all parents whose sons, uncles and fathers are bullies who resort to fists and weapons to subjugate their victims.

The cycle only gets more vicious if we do not intervene.