Children are traumatised by high levels of crime, domestic violence andthe impact of death and suffering in their families due to HIV/Aids
Charlene Smith
The question to 850 children at a schools’ drama festival in Johannesburg last week was: ”How many of you have been present during an armed robbery?” Half raised their hands.
The homes of nearly all had been burgled, about a third knew someone who was HIV-positive, a family member in about 10% of homes had been raped, a third had afamily member who had been murdered, about 15% had been present during ahijacking.
These 17-year olds, nearly all from wealthy private schools, are a fairly typical representation of how children in South African society are dailytraumatised by violence. They are then further traumatised, Umesh Bawa, apsychologist at the University of the Western Cape says, by images of graphicviolence conveyed by the media.
He says: ”There is a very strong sense emanating from the media that this country is unsafe and people won’t be protected. Children see traumatisingpictures of accidents, deaths and pick up on the big sense of fear thatpervades the psyche of adults.”
In turn children become fearful and aggressive.
Dr Saths Cooper, head of the South African Psychological Association and a veteran of the 1976 student struggles, says: ”It is 25 years since the 1976 studentuprising and our country has been in perpetual conflict since then. Traumais now more widespread.
”The teachers who take no interest in their pupils, many are the youth of 1976, so are the nurses who treat patientsappallingly. Two out of three adults will experience serious stress in thiscountry, but we are not adequately helping them or their children. We are ina dangerous cycle.”
According to Cooper untreated trauma leads to ongoing anger and destructive behaviour.
But South African children were not only damaged by apartheid, children today are being traumatised by high levels of crime, domestic violence andthe impact of death and suffering in their families due to HIV/Aids.
An HIV-positive single mother interviewed in Mphophomeni, a village near Howick, said she had four children, three under the age of six, but the fourthwas 13. ”I’ve told the children about my status but the older boy won’t listen, he walks out. The others are too small to understand. The olderboy’s school marks are terrible, teachers say he sleeps in class, he won’tplay with others, he sits alone.”
Trauma in children is often considered invisible and their feelings ignored. Professor Mahomed Seedat, who heads the Unisa and Medical ResearchCouncil team investigating Crime, Violence and Injury in South Africa, says: ”If children find the adult world unresponsive and uncaring, they drawattention to their troubles in maladjusted ways there should be spaces inthe school system to care for them.
”It worries us that the school system, especially in Gauteng, has withdrawn psychological services. There should be counselling services for kids inschool in and around the community. We have to talk to kids aboutprevention, conflict resolution, anti-crime messages. We have to examine our moral authority. What sort of messages are political leaders conveying tochildren when they suggest that it is okay to be dishonest?”
Seedat’s anxiety is fuelled in no small part by the results of a two-year survey at 37 mortuaries in six provinces by the Medical ResearchCouncil and Unisa, the full results of which will be released in October.
Apreliminary result showed that a teenager in Cape Town is more likely to be shot dead than to die in a traffic accident or of normal causes. SouthAfricans are more than twice as likely to be murdered than to die in roadaccidents.
A black youth in his teens or early twenties is more likely to be shot dead or die of Aids than in any other way. Young women are six times morelikely to die of Aids than any other cause, although their risk of beingstrangled, shot, raped, and stabbed is high too.
Bawasays as a result youths are more likely to ignore safe sex messages, they are more likelyto become involved in behaviour that is self-destructive and destructive tothe communities they live in.
Bawa says his research in the Cape highlights ”a lot of sexual violence and violence against children, it is a terrible area. Society isnot looking at the needs of children very clearly. If adults are not coping,children are not coping as well.
”There is a lot of family violence and children witness that. Children are being socialised into responding to disputes in violent ways, a lot of kidsare coming to schools with weapons, we see gang wars. Children who witnessviolence withdraw into themselves and show depression, they may not be ableto sleep or eat.”
Mary Robertson of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in Johannesburg says: ”We see teacher training as critical. Teachers canmediate stress. Parents need to tell schools what is happening otherwise youget a teacher shouting at a child who is already traumatised. Teachers needto know why a child may present with ‘problem’ behaviour.”
On the other hand, ”parents are often so involved in their own trauma that they don’t have the emotional energy to help a child. Or a child will be quiet and everyone will assume he or she is fine a quiet child may be the one experiencing problems.”
Robertson says: ”Parents often avoid talking about the traumatic event, they think children will forget. We encourage them to talk about it.”
She says support groups in schools might be a way to assist children, ”in some schools we run groups for children who have had parents murdered and those raped.”
ENDS