Take care of our children

NATIONAL Child Protection Week is commemorated this month and we have much to think about, and to do, if we want to create a country that our children can thrive in.

Not a week goes by that a child is not murdered in South Africa – often by relatives, or by people known to them.

Others are raped or abused, with the number of cases that are reported dwarfed by those that are not.

It is, to put it bluntly, our national shame.

It is no longer good enough to simply wring our hands when the next child is murdered.

For the sake of our children, we must take back our streets, so that they are able to do what children have been doing since the first villages, towns and cities came into being – wandering, exploring, playing games, laughing…

It is a shame, a crime almost, that so many of our children are just not given the time to be… children.

Parents and neighbours, and members of communities, can all play a role in helping to break the spiral of abuse of our young ones.