This was the frank admission from deputy social development minister Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu.
Children have been exposed to adult content during the lockdown, deputy social development minister Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu said on Monday.South Africa’s children have been forced to “look after themselves” under lockdown. They have been victims of and witnesses to gender-based violence, watched as their parents were forced into a “unsupervised detoxification” and exposed to cyberbullying as they've spent more time online.
She and minister Lindiwe Zulu spoke during the launch of Child Protection Week on Monday.that with the ban on alcohol under lockdown, many parents were forced into “unsupervised detoxification”.“Children had to look after themselves, because as South Africa we are a country that abuses alcohol. And with a lot of abuse of alcohol came the removal of alcohol and unsupervised detoxification. A lot of families went into detox.
“Parents were present physically, but they were shaking, sitting on the couch, crying - all of what represents detox. And they could not look after their children. Children had to look after themselves.Bogopane-Zulu added that children “were exposed to a lot of gender-based violence, where mothers and fathers just could not coexist”.
“A time that was supposed to be a family time, even though it was the virus that was forcing us to be together - but a lot of children were exposed to violence in the places where they were supposed to feel the most safe: the home,” she said. “So we had to now intervene and interfere in that which was supposed to be the best of family time because parents were fighting.”
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