23 Feb 2016

Kgosi Kaisara Phuthego of Maboane in the Letlhakeng Sub-district has condemned the tendency by some parents to take their children out of school to work in the nearby farms.

Speaking in an interview recently, Kgosi Phuthego said such practice was rife in his village. He said it was even more baffling that the wages they earned were enough to sustain their families, which left one wondering why they would abandon school in favour of farm work. 

He said in the last Primary School Leaving Examinations results, the school registered a paltry 17.9 percentage pass rate, an embarrassment he believed was exacerbated by the issue of absconding children.  He said the village authorities were in the process of summoning the farms owners to discuss the problem.

Kgosi Phuthego said there had also been reports of rape and defilement in these farms, something that indicated that such children were sexually abused.

“Children as young as 11 years are the main victims as they are being sexually abused by farm owners and other older workers. What concerns us most is that parents often cover up and never report such cases to the relevant authorities,” he said.  

He said this made it difficult for bogosi to deal with the problem.  He said some of the youth that worked in these farms did not even have national identity cards, an issue that he said made it cumbersome to enroll them for government initiatives such as poverty eradication and youth grants.

On other issues, Kgosi Phuthego said he was worried by alcohol abuse in his village. This, he said, was often accompanied by a lot of noise even in the odd hours of the night at homes that brew and sold  alcohol.

Kgosi Phuthego also decried shortage of office space in the village, saying at the kgotla only four offices were available. Ends