Shocking truth about poverty, hunger in SA

We pride ourselves as a family newspaper one that can be enjoyed by the entire family as the reporting is accurate, fair, responsible and does not show gratuitous images or use explicit language. On Wednesday, the editorial management team spent a significant amount of time discussing whether or not to publish photographs of a Motherwell woman so emaciated that all that is left of her is skin and bone.

The photograph that is the most horrific is the one depicting her naked from the waist up, which shows the true extent of her desperate situation. It is so shocking and so raw that you would have to be completely heartless for it not to affect you.

It is for this reason that we took the decision to publish it, knowing that it may be upsetting to you, the reader, but also balancing that against the need to show the true extent of poverty and hunger in our country.

Through Andy (not her real name), we told you the story of absolute desperation in our country of a third of South Africans going to bed hungry each night. Andy’s dire situation is the lived reality of 20-million South Africans.

She lives in a household with four other people who all rely on her elderly father’s pension of R1,880 a month and the R450 Andy’s younger sister receives in support of her two-year-old son. They run out of food halfway through the month, and though neighbours sometimes chip in to assist, most nights they go to bed hungry.

This spurred neighbours to share the graphic images to get the public’s attention.

The response from relevant authorities and humanitarian foundation Gift of the Givers since they were alerted to the matter by The Herald, has been positive. There has been an outpouring of offers to help Andy and her family.

For that we are grateful as it was exactly the purpose of the article that Andy’s family, and many others like them, can get assistance from the public who are able to provide it.

As a newspaper, we are fully aware that people are looking for some good, uplifting news but we also believe that we have a responsibility to balance that against the need to bring you, valued reader, the news on the ground, the realities of people who are hanging on by a thread.

We believe that the best type of journalism is the one that effects change. Our hope is to soon be able to bring you a good news story about Andy and her family.