Do you know what is going on out there?

A 3-year old girl is abducted from here Creche in Khayelitsha. Her little body is found in an informal settlement. The FCS unit arrests group of men.

A suspect takes his ex-girl friend into a bush. He rapes and tortures her for two days. She is extremely traumatized. He is arrested and sentenced for 31 years. In the court he attacks his victim with a sharpened toothbrush.

A young girl is attacked when she fetches water. She is taken to an uninhabited shacked where he rapes her. He keeps her there and rapes her several more times until the next night when she eventually manages to escape. He was arrested and was sentenced for 22 years.

An 18 year old girl, on her way to work, is kidnapped at gunpoint and taken back to her house where her younger sister opens the door. In full view of two minor children, he rapes both girls. He keeps on threatening to shoot them. Eventually the younger kids manage to escape and get help. He is arrested and sentenced to 25 years.

Two 12 year old girls are lured into a deserted spot by a 32 year old man. He sexually assault and rapes both. They are severely traumatized. He is eventually arrested and receives two sentences of 10 years each for Indecent assault and two Life Imprisonment sentences for the two rapes.

The mother of a 12 year old girl sends her brother to wake her up for school. He find her in a pool of blood in her bed. The perpetrator is her uncle who raped her during the night and then tried to kill her. She survives, he is arrested and gets 20 years.

Expert warns against child trafficking during 2010

While the 2010 soccer showpiece next year will bring an influx of tourists and opportunities, it will also bring child predators. There has already been marked increase in child trafficking in the country and the targets are mainly boys under the age of 18 years.
That is the warning of Professor Susan Kreston, a consultant to governments and NGOs on child abuse and exploitation issues. She says a study last year, which looked at the internal trafficking of children in the country, saw in increase for pornographic purposes.
“Child trafficking is the removal of the child from a safe environment. With the levels of poverty in South Africa, visitors are seen as wealthy. With the World Cup, the environment will be ripe for exploitation”.
Children can be lured with tickets to matches or be enticed with opportunities to make money.
“We are very concerned about it. If just a tiny number of visitors engage in child trafficking or child pornography, it’s going to be a problem. Investigation will be difficult as these people will go back to their countries. The children won’t know there names,” says Professor Kreston.
“The treat is very real. Now we have children who will be out of school for five weeks because they have holidays during the tournament. When the children are in school we know where they are for six hours a day. We won’t know where they are at all for the whole five weeks.”
Vanessa Scholtz (Tygertalk)

Note : MAB is alarmed by reports coming in from areas where the mothers are training the 10 year olds to do “messages”, because as they put it “the uncles will pay a lot for it”.

Vodacom Heroes do it again!

Captain Zwane GKS (Gauteng Province), Thenjiwe (Vodacom Foundation), Lizel (MAB) and Melenie (Vodacom Foundation)

Vodacom Yebo Heroes with Rabie Ridge FCS detectives.

On Friday, 23 October the Vodacom heroes were in action from early morning, packing the Vodacom Comfort packs. These packs are supplied to the police to give to children when they report crimes. It is an emergency pack and contains something to eat and drink, a soft toy, colouring book and crayons and also sanitary pads, panties, tissues, toothpast and a brush and deodorant. The 220 comfort packs were distributed to Child Protection officers at Garsfontein, Pta Central, Rabie Ridge, Sandton, Krugersdorp, Kliptown and Roodepoort Stations.
Thank you to the Vodacom volunteers for helping us with this special taks and thank you to Vodacom Foundation for making this possible!

Thank you Carlswald Spar

Lucia Odendal (Carlswald Spar) has been a long time supporter of MAB. Whenever we need catering for making our police members feel special or have a special celebration, she is there to help! Lucia, thanx for the great food and for always being there for us!

Going xtreme for our kids

Xtremeforkids is a fundraising initiative by Jos Malerbe in partnership with Matla A Bana – A voice against child abuse. Jos is one of the participants in the 2010 Tour D’Afrique Bicycle Race. Jos’s aim is to raise more than R100 000 for Matla A Bana and to use this as a vehicle (or bicycle!) to spread the message that children should be protected and loved not abused.

Jos will be departing on 16 January 2010. We would like to wish him the best of luck.

You can support us and inspire him, by sponsoring one of the many daily legs. For more information please visit - http://xtremeforkids.blogspot.com/ or book your leg on http://matlaabana.co.za/.

MAB assists with Child Trauma Training

MAB will be assisting the Child Trauma Centre to host several training courses in the Western Cape for representatives of the Department of Social Development and NGO’s in the region. Subjects covered will include Working with children, Working with families, Prevention & Early Intervention, Compassion Fatigue and Program planning. Seven clusters and 140 social workers will benefit from this training that will run from October 2009 to June 2010. This project is sponsored by the Department of Social Development.

First Training in Debriefing starts

On Friday a group of 19 Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Commanders and Forensic Social Workers in the Western Cape, received training in Conflict Management. This is the first of a series of programs designed to assist members in debriefing and stress management. Earlier this year Commissioner Petros recognised the need for debriefing of members and asked Matla A Bana to address this need.
There is a high rate of divorce, depressing, burn-out and even suicide under these members.
Approximately R 100 000 is needed to host the full program per unit. Should you be interested in sponsoring such a program, please contact us.

We would like to thank the Ferreiras for donating the conference venue and Reach Africa for once again assisting us with the training.

Monique gets Rotary Paul Harris

Monique Strydom (MAB CEO) was awarded last night with the international Paul Harris Award for her dedication in helping others in need. Thank you Rotary Claremont (Suzanne, Peter and Debbie and the rest!) for this great honour and for supporting so many of the Matla A Bana projects!

Vodacom volunteers our heros!

Every month the Gauteng office supplies 220 comfort packs to police stations to give to child abuse victims. These packs are caringly packed by a group of dedicated volunteers from Vodacome. We would like to thank Melenie Naidoo and her volunteers for being there every month - you are our heros!!

WHITE ELEPHANT brings great surprise

Our Cape Town Fundraiser, The White Elephant sale, caused great excitement recently. Name it, and we had it! Hosted in September at at Cape Garden Centre we managed to raise more than R 10 000 for Matla A Bana. With great bargains and even greater fun (for all the volunteers!) - we will definately be doing this again. We would like to thank Peter and his staff at Cape Garden Centre, as well as our group of 8 volunteers for making this day such an success.

Shellard and Dell comes to the rescue

Clive from Shellard Media announcing their generous sponsorship!

We urgently needed to install audio-visual recording facilities at Vereeniging FCS in order to make this a child-friendly reporting facility. This equipment is needed to record the interview with the child and can later be used for testimony preparation for court.

Shellard Media (who also sponsored the full audio-visual system for Morokka FCS) and Dell Foundation came to the party and donated R 7000 and R 15000 respectively! We would like to thank both Clive and Elaine for coming to the rescue.

This facility deals with an average of 30 child abuse cases a month - so your donation will go a long way to help minimise the secondary abuse of our children.

Babcock shows some tenderness

Babcock Africa Services (Pty) Ltd with its majority male employees took the challenge to change an abused child’s life. These gents carefully packed more than 80 comfort packs for child abuse victims and then handed it over to MAB to distribute to Child Protection Sections in Gauteng.

Secretary's day Montecasino

MAB celebrated National Secretaries Day in grand style at Montecasino. All thanks to the creative efforts of Carin Kotze (Il Muso) who organised the event in aid of Matla A Bana. Edith Venter was the MC for the day, and told everyone that she started her career as a secretary. Author of "The art of good living", Edith is no stranger to Charity, and had bin a great supporter of Matla a Bana over the years.

It was however the talents of the men from Navi Redd who stole the hearts of the ladies, using only their vocal chords and creativity to take audiences on an unbelievable journey of sounds and harmonies. Well-known beauty giant, Willa Krause shared her secrets in how to look great.

There was not a dry eye after Anna Davel performed the son "The Innocent" which she wrote for Matla A Bana.

A very big thank you to all who attended and to all our sponsors:
Montecasino, Willa Krause Group, NetFlorist, M & M Hiring, Fotoman Photography, Your Ticket, Alice Art Gallery, Netmetro, The meat Company, Lindt

FIRST CHILD FRIEDLY REPORTING FACILITY FOR WESTERN CAPE!

Commissioner Petros taking care of the "official opening".

Lauren (Nando's), Tony & Suzie (Rotary Claremont), Comm Petros, Monique (MAB) & Ian (KFM)
The assessment room with one-way mirror

On 28 August the first MAB Child Friendly reporting facility in the Western Cape was officially opened by Commissioner Petros. This facility will help more than 50 child-abuse victims every month and boasts with a victim friendly reception, monitoring room with state-of-the-art recording facilities and a child-friendly assessment room. We would like to thank all the sponsors who made this project possible.

19th August, POA Woman's Day

It was a day full of caring and personal growth for all attending. Rosemary Hunter, the winner of POA Imbasa Yegolide Award: Industry Personality of the Year, gave an inspirational message to the Ladies. Deputy Provincial Commissioner of Gauteng, Henriette Bester explained the importance of the Matla a Bana projects in helping SAPS and abused victims. She complimen-ted Matla for their consistency as a charity and never giving up. Even when facing the many challenges in the current market. All guests contributed by making comfort packs for abused children. Captain Mawila form Mamelodi East accepted the comfort packs. Our very own Esme Ehlers, one of Matla a Bana’s old friends and trustee Member, with her business partner Berti Akersten, did a talk on "Unlocking Your Potential” These platforms allow Matla a Bana to reach the public and create awareness of child abuse and rape in our country.