Residents in Bredasdorp are still shaken by Anene's death, and have formed an umbrella body to prevent such cases.
|||Cape Town - Anene Booysen’s rape and murder was not the only such case in Bredasdorp - three years ago an 11-year-old girl’s decomposed body was found three weeks after she went missing. The two murdered girls are now a harsh symbol of the social ills that plague the town.
Residents in the town are still shaken by Anene’s violent death, and have formed an umbrella body of organisations to prevent such cases happening again.
Gurshwin Williams, 24, is typical of the young men in Bredasdorp whom these organisations are trying to keep from “falling through the cracks”. He dropped out of school in Grade 10, and cannot find work.
Williams said he stopped going to school because of peer pressure, and smoked dagga and Mandrax with friends. His family is haunted by the pain of his sister’s death three years ago.
His 11-year-old sister Charlyn’s badly decomposed body was found 1km from her house three weeks after she went missing. Like Anene, she was last seen at a club, and her body was found under scrap materials by a group of young boys. \
One of Williams’ close friends was arrested for the crime and confessed to the killing.
What angers Williams is that his former friend will serve only seven years in prison. He received a 12-year sentence with five years suspended.
“To me that is not a sentence. I can’t stand men that do things like this.
“He was a decent guy, he finished school, he was good in sport, his family life was good. He had everything a young man wants. I don’t think I can ever forgive him for the pain he put me through,” Williams said.
Two years ago, Williams joined Boys To Men where he got the motivation to stay out of trouble and achieve something in life.
“When that happened to my sister I saw how I hurt people because we used to rob people, break into houses for money for drugs and I also became a father so I knew I had to stop these things,” he said.
Williams said the workshops with Boys To Men helped him to talk about his problems.
Commenting on Anene’s case, David Elliott, a facilitator at Boys To Men said: “It’s heartbreaking to know that a man has the capacity to do that to a woman.
“To me it seems the police are not doing enough. If they have semen samples then what are forensics teams doing? We don’t get the impression that police are looking for the other suspects.”
Since Anene’s death a month ago the area has become quieter over weekends and people are more careful about walking alone at night.
Julene Zana, Anene’s mother’s neighbour, said she remembers Anene as a very quiet person who always greeted others politely.
“People can’t stop talking about her; they still can’t believe what happened. It’s very difficult to deal with it. Since this happened, the young people are told not to walk alone and we just do what we can to keep the community together,” Zana said.
Last week a group of organisations came together to talk about how they could strengthen resources to help people in need of work, neglected children or people with addiction problems.
They agreed to sign up to the Overberg Development Agency and build a network to help people.
They say in some areas about 30 percent of people are unemployed. The average monthly income per family is R3 500, while many parents live on R280 child grants and contract work where they earn R1 800 a month.
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Two years ago research by the Extra-Mural Education Project revealed that urgent intervention and funds for programmes were needed to combat social problems in Bredasdorp.
Workers on the Hope Project found that the town battled with a high school dropout rate, and that unemployment was rife, as were alcohol and drug abuse and teenage pregnancies.
zara.nicholson@inl.co.za
Cape Times