DANIEL MOHATO MOFOKENG
As kids, we would hear screams of women or girls at night, around 8pm or so, mostly on Fridays,coming from the open veld opposite our home. When we asked our parents what was happening to cause such cries,we would be scolded, and were not even allowed to peep through the windows to see what was happening. The truth of the matter was that the girls or women were being violated. But as young children we could not fathom the nature of those incidents.
Naledi in the 1960s typified survival of the fittest, everyone for himself and God for us all. In that environment women and girls fell on the lowest rung of the social ladder and were ignored. Boys at that time would even refer to girls colloquially as “these things”. A total disregard for girls as human beings was the norm of the day.
“I was raised in Gauteng, South Africa, in a very poverty-stricken part of Naledi township in Soweto that was notoriously called the ‘Wild West’, known for its rampant robberies, murders, theft, gangsterism and rape. My story is based on my personal observations from childhood to date.”
November 2023 | Collective Action Magazine
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