The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) Youth recently donated a trauma doll to the Wellington police station. This simple tool can make a significant difference in communicating with abused children.
When children are physically or sexually abused, they often struggle to put their horrific experiences into words. With the trauma doll, they can portray and explain the worst day of their lives to someone they trust.
Colonel Barkhuizen and his team at the Wellington police station offer a safe place for victims.
The Freedom Front Plus believes that practical support, such as the trauma doll, plays a key role in helping children reclaim their voice and start their journey to justice.
The reasons for why such tools are needed in the first place are evident from the harsh reality of the police’s own crime statistics:
• In the first five months of this year, 63 children were killed in gang violence – most caught in crossfire on the Cape Flats.
• In the same period, 333 children were injured and barely survived.
• Over the past five years, 472 child murders were recorded in the Western Cape, 157 of which were directly linked to gang violence.
• Sexual crime hits the youth particularly hard, with 60% of rape victims being younger than 25 years.
These figures not only represent statistics, but also shattered dreams, broken families and a broken society.
The Freedom Front Plus Youth will actively facilitate collaboration between the police, provincial government and communities to safeguard our children.
Donating the trauma doll is a small gesture, but it symbolises a bigger message: We cannot stand idly by and look on as an entire generation is swallowed up by a wave of crime.
