Mbeki: Report home violence

2004-11-06 17:27

Johannesburg - People need to report crimes such as domestic violence and drug pedalling to the police, President Thabo Mbeki told a Children's Day celebration in Soweto on Saturday.

He was answering questions at a news conference where school children, representing various radio stations, posed questions.

Adult reporters were allowed in only as observers.

Child abuse, perpetrated in homes, was particularly difficult for police to know about because it happened "behind closed doors", said Mbeki.

He advised children that if they could not approach their parents, they should tell their teachers or religious leaders.

The "news conference" followed a walk-through of two large tents filled with more than thousand pupils from all nine provinces, many of whom took the opportunity to speak to him.

The topic of domestic violence came up there too, as did questions such as opportunities for disabled school leavers, such as one posed by Siphelisiwe Vilikazi, 15, from the Adelaide Tambo school for the physically disabled, in Soweto.

Street children urged to go home

Mbeki advised a table of street children that it was better to go home and sort problems out, or possibly live with other families, than to live on the streets.

"They told me that on the streets they are taught to sniff glue and do crime," Mbeki told the "news conference".

"I told them that was bad and it was better to solve the problem at home. Once they are on the streets it is difficult to get rights (to education)."

Pupils told the President about the problem of rape.

Cedric Ranchor, a teacher from Eldorado Park outside Johannesburg told Sapa he noticed the rape of children in their homes was an increasing problem.

"One has such a challenge as a teacher," he said.

"Besides teaching one is also a social worker, I need to address abuse issues four or five times a week."

On a lighter note, pupils from Morris Isaacson School, which hosted the event and was a key player in the Soweto student uprisings of 1976, complained to the President about outsiders who continually broke the school fence.

Mbeki summoned Gauteng education MEC Angie Motshekga who told them: "We have to make sure the community look after the assets of the school."

Pupils meanwhile gathered autographs on their shirts.

They included the names of Motshekga, Mbeki, Minister of the Office of the President Essop Pahad, Education Minister Naledi Pandor and presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo.

"I am not going to wash my shirt," Nompulo Mchechwe of Bukulani Senior Secondary School in Soweto.

Had she had the opportunity she would have asked Mbeki why people about disability grants because she has two siblings who are disabled, she said.

- SAPA