Pensioner raped and killed

Day care centres for the elderly don’t stop attacks on gogos

ALTHOUGH adult day-care centres are widely available throughout the province elderly grandmothers continue to be robbed, raped and killed in the Eastern Cape.

Last Sunday a 72-year-old granny was raped and killed in Ntonga village near Dimbaza.

Granny Nothembile Zenzile died two days before her 73rd birthday celebrations.

The pensioner was discovered dead and naked on her bed by neighbours who got worried when she failed to come out of her house in the morning.

At the time of her death Zenzile was living alone. Provincial police said an investigation into her death is at an advanced stage.

Yesterday the provincial social development department said it had about 233 adult day-care centres to care and protect elderly people in all provincial districts.

However, the emphasis of these adult day-care centres is not on protecting elderly citizens from brutal crimes but on offering grannies assistance with their nutritional needs, nursing care and recreation.

The day-care centres do not operate 24 hours a day and grannies – including those who live alone – are sent home in the afternoon.

Some of the centres are found in Mthatha, Butterworth, Dimbaza and Queenstown.

Social development spokesman Gcobani Maswana said the Dimbaza Society of the Aged looks after 245 elderly people.

In Mthatha the Eluncedweni Multi Purpose Centre and Impa-Inga Older Persons Service Centre host about 106 gogos.

In other places like Queenstown – where an 80-year-old woman was killed last year when criminals cut her tongue out before setting her alight – centres like the Queenstown Service Centre and the Sterkstroom Service Centre are available.

“The older people arrive in the morning and leave for their homes in the afternoon,” said Maswana.

Lesley-Ann Foster, a director at the Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre, said the adult day-care centres were “nowhere near helping the elderly”. “The community needs to take responsibility to ensure elderly women are safe.

“We seriously need to look at mechanisms that will assist our elderly citizens, like introducing community watch initiatives where patrols can be conducted in the village at night by residents,” said Foster.

“The rapes and killings are a very big and serious problem in our communities.”

Johan Burger of the Institute for Security Studies said there has not been a logical explanation for why elderly women were targeted and raped.

“Seriously it is a question of the soul.”— zwangam@dispatch.co.za