Olifant’s Drift troubles worry village leadership
Social ills including defilement, rebellious youth, alcohol-abuse by especially young people give Kgosi Modise Mohutsiwa of Olifant’s Drift, sleepless nights, literally.
“I get reports of such incidents after 00:00 hrs, which shows that curfew time is not observed, and this is really disturbing as most young people here freely abuse alcohol”, Mohutsiwa told The Midweek Sun.
The village is located about 85km away from Mochudi in the Kgatleng district. Other troublesome issues are cattle theft and house break-ins. But what worries Kgosi Mohutsiwa the most is that most elders hide defilement cases and never want to open up about them.
He said they often realise that there is a case of defilement, when they see a school going girl visiting the clinic for prenatal checkups because of pregnancy.
He urged parents to report such cases at the Kgotla and the police to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable
so that authorities are able to know the extent of the problem in the village.
Sometimes their investigations show that the incident was reported to the police but later dissolved as the victim and the perpetrator’s families would ask for the case to be dissolved.
“We are always open to work with the police and I plead with them to share these kinds of issues so that we can fight them together”, Mohutsiwa said, adding that he has a good working relationship with social workers deployed in his area.
He explained that good working relations between stakeholders help to build a better community. They have introduced regular meetings with an activity plan to teach people about Covid-19 and Gender Based Violence in an effort to combat violence in families.
This week Wednesday, they organised a violence prevention meeting and his wish is to get parents to open up and talk about these issues than end up protecting perpetrators.
He said that in some instances,
alleged offenders are bread winners who commit these heinous crimes of defilement.
In other cases, perpetrators take advantage of the poverty in families of victims to keep them quiet by buying them gifts. He said the high unemployment rate in the village makes the situation worse.
Kgosi Mohutsiwa acknowledged that most girls in his village often miss school as a result of natural factors beyond their control.
Last week philanthropist, Neo Kerebotswe in partnership with Troy, a local comedian and the South African Papanyana Foundation, as well as the renowned gospel singer, Simon Makgatholela donated sanitary pads, toiletries and groceries to the village.
Kgosi Mohutsiwa said the gifts came at an opportune time.
The gifts were eamarked to be donated in Olifant’s Drift, Ramotlabaki and Artesia to the families identified by social workers.
Kerebotswe said she picked these areas because of the need to restore and preserve the dignity of the girl child.