Pretoria - When children suffer from drug addiction and abuse, it is the mothers who bear the pain of watching them throw their future away.
This was the view of a group of “hopeless” mothers who have been meeting in various spots in Eersterust to pray against the scourge they believe has defeated the local police.
Turning their last hope to God, women in the community have formed Moms Against Drugs to pray for the youth in the community and create a voice that is not ashamed to admit that the community has a substance abuse problem.
They say for years, almost every second or third house has has a problem with a child or adult that is hooked on drugs and causes problems.
Over the years, residents have submitted several memorandums to the Eersterust police station regarding the problem, but they remain unimpressed with changes, or lack thereof, as dealers continue to ply their trade freely in public.
One of the mothers, Khadija Afrika, 58, has three children addicted to drugs that have made her older son, 43, violent, her daughter, 38, a “lady of the streets” who has abandoned her three young children, and her youngest daughter, 27, struggling to permanently curb the habit.
“We are tired of talking and complaining about the local police. We are now putting our faith in God and assisting those children who come to us by taking them to rehab.
“I am a community worker, I have helped so many people’s children, but my own children continue to suffer. I do not sleep because they just come in any time. They are my children, I cannot chase them away to the streets forever.
“My son has become violent. He has beaten me. I called the police, but he did not get arrested. At this point we are tired of complaining; we are doing something, and that is praying and doing anything else that is in our power.
“We pray for our community because we have children as young as 8 already on drugs and gangsterism. I know this because I also work in a school. God will give us the answers we need,” said Afrika.
Eersterust community leader and United Independent Movement member Virginia Keppler-Young said the party established the movement in order to give tired mothers a voice and a platform to support each other and acknowledge that their children would be doomed if they did not unite and fight together.
She said the community had mothers who got beaten by their own children when they demanded drug money or items to sell. They had forged partnership with rehabilitation centres and they were “holding the knife by the blade” to fix their own community, one addict at a time.
They had lost confidence in the police because they saw the vans “hanging” outside drug dealers’ houses and drug dealing spots, but those known criminals did not get arrested.
Meawhile, Eersterust police have asked the community to work closely with them and report suspects.
Pretoria News