Two men praised for walk against abuse

A 1 317km walk from Cape Town to Mahikeng to raise awareness of the abuse of women and children ended in a hero’s welcome when the two walkers finally arrived home.

Exhausted, sunburnt and a few kilograms lighter, Thato Molosankwe and Jesse le Roux arrived in Mahikeng on Women’s Day after completing a journey that started lasted a month after it began on July 9.

Molosankwe started the journey on his own but met le Roux on the fourth day in Worcester.

Le Roux was living on the streets because his family had fled home, allegedly due to abuse from his father.

At the time that they met, Le Roux did not know how he was going to get back home to Oudtshoorn.

However, he later joined Molosankwe on the walk after telling him how he had been living on the streets, and eating from dustbins due to bad conditions at home.

Le Roux now plans to remain in Mahikeng, which is Molosankwe’s home town, and start a new life there.

Good Samaritans have already offered him a home and a job.

Many Mahikeng residents gathered at Danville Park where the pair received a hero’s welcome and were also praised for their efforts to raise awareness of the scourge of abuse of women and children.

Bikers, cyclists and many others ushered them in as they entered Mahikeng amid ululations and the hooting of cars.

They lined the streets as the pair walked, others holding placards that denounced women and child abuse.

Other walkers, who had walked from Mahikeng to Joburg to raise awareness of women and child abuse, were also in attendance.

Speaking at the event, MEC for social development Hoffman Galeng, said Molosankwe had done the province proud and put it on the map.

He said he wished that many youths who were at the event, especially boys and men would emulate him.

“What you did today, we will follow in those footsteps. Even gangsters, wherever they are, we wish that when they make plans, they don’t plan with the lives of the girl children and the lives of our mothers,” he said.

“Thato, my child, we will at all times remember those words that, men who respect themselves, the men who regard themselves as men, say: ‘Not in our names’.

Molosankwe told the people who had gathered under the hot sun that an abuser did not have a specific look and women should not be scared of getting help when they find themselves in abusive relationships.

He reminded men that calling their wives and girlfriends stupid and also comparing them to other women, saying those women were better than them, is a form of abuse.

He told the crowds how he started his anti-abuse walk by approaching a group of men in Khayelitsha, then later found himself on a train, spreading the message from one coach to the next.

Molosankwe believes that his walk may have changed lives.

Another official who spoke at the event said after seeing the route that Molosankwe and Le Roux walked and how far it was, he believed the pair wanted to show the hardship women go through.

Twenty-one year old *Tefo, who was also at the event, said he learnt a lot from Molosankwe.

He said he was the kind of person who used to be harsh to his romantic partners but that was now in the past.

“Today, I learnt the importance of listening to my girlfriends and respecting them so that he could also be respected as a man,” Tefo said.

“If we disagree on something, I don’t have to give them dirty looks or be harsh with them.”