‘Abducted’ boys won’t go home
Police forced to drop charges as initiates tell parents they want to become men
ELEVEN Gauteng youths who were reportedly “kidnapped” and enrolled at an initiation school in Mpumalanga have left their parents and police baffled after they refused to go home.
In what is likely to create a headache for law-enforcement institutions, Gauteng police have had to provisionally drop a case of kidnapping against three suspects who were arrested when the boys ’ parents reported them to the police for “kidnapping ” their children.
The parents told the police that their children, aged between 13 and 16, were kidnapped in Daveyton on the East Rand and taken to an initiation school in Dennilton.
Police spokesman Major Mack Mngomezulu told Sowetan that the parents opened the case over the weekend and were driven to the initiation school, only to be defied by their children on arrival.
“After making their statements, the police drove with the parents to the place in Dennilton where they were accompanied by [more] local police to the mountains. The boys, as well as the three people who had brought them there, were identified,” Mngomezulu said.
“Those three people were then arrested. And then a question was posed to find out how the boys arrived at the initiation school. The boys told the police that their journey to the initiation school was not forceful, they said ‘ we came here because want to be men ’.
“The parents complained that the boys went to the initiation school without their consent, but the boys insisted that they were not compelled and that their being there was voluntary,” Mngomezulu said.
He said police were left with no choice but to arrest and detain the three suspects because a case of kidnapping was already opened.
“They were taken to court but the court said because there were no statements from the boys ... ‘ we cannot place this docket on the roll ’. The case was temporarily withdrawn and will be placed back on the roll only if statements from these boys are obtained.”
He added that the local chief said the school was legal and that there was nothing he could do if the boys were refusing to go home.
Meanwhile, the Mpumalanga House of Traditional Leaders said, as custodians of initiation schools in the province, it was concerned by the developments.
Chairman of the house Chief Lameck Mokoena said a task team had been dispatched to the KwaMhlanga area to determine whether the initiation schools there were operating legally. “We are told that someone who claims to be royalty is giving people bogus permits to operate initiation schools in that area,” Mokoena said.