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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cSuffer little children, and forbid them not\u201d<\/p>\n
A boy-child was forced to drown in shit.
\nThe Elders expressed shock, then promised
\nChange, then did nothing, less than and worse
\nThan nothing. Then a girl-child was forced
\nTo drown in shit. The Elders expressed
\nShock, promised great change, and did nothing.
\nLess than and worse than nothing. This month
\nA girl-child was forced to drown in shit.
\nThe Elders expressed shock, then promised
\nChange, then did nothing, less than and worse
\nThan nothing. This poem, this story,
\nThis song, we call this education.<\/p>\n
In the Daily Maverick<\/em>, Zukiswa Pikoli wrote<\/a>, \u201cThe death of four-year-old Langalam Viki in a pit toilet should never have happened. The people who work for the Department of Education at the school, provincial and national level, who are responsible for this negligence and neglect should hang their heads in shame.\u201d \u00a0Another South African, Melanie Verwoerd, wrote<\/a>, \u201cThinking of the fear these little children must have felt and their desperate struggles for air in the last minutes of their lives is almost unbearable. Of all the things the government has neglected to deliver on, this is without doubt the most shameful.\u201d On Saturday, March 18, in the town of Buffelsdoring in the Eastern Cape, four-year-old Langalam Viki was laid to rest<\/a>. Langalam Viki drowned in a pit latrine at her school. When Langalam Viki did not show up at her home, her mother, went looking for her. Langalam Viki\u2019s body was finally located and \u201cretrieved<\/a>\u201d. What else is there to say?<\/p>\n On January 20, 2014, when five-year-old Michael Komape<\/a> drowned in a pit latrine at his school, in Limpopo, James Komape<\/a>, Michael\u2019s father,\u00a0said<\/a>, \u201cThey should have helped. My son was going to school. I did not send him to die.\u201d I did not send him to die, and yet he was sent to his death, by a State that refuses to replace the certain death sentences of schoolhouse pit latrines with safe and secure school toilets.<\/p>\n On March 12, 2018, when five-year-old Lumka Mketwa<\/a> drowned in a pit latrine at her school, in the Eastern Cape, Lumka Mketwa\u2019s family had\u00a0serious questions<\/a>. They asked who was responsible for their daughter\u2019s death? They asked, who is responsible for children\u2019s education, safety, wellbeing, when they are at school? \u00a0They asked, why is this not a national emergency? How many more children must die, how many more families must be haunted? Michael Komape\u2019s family is haunted. Lumka Mketwa\u2019s family is haunted. The State is not haunted. If it were, it would have acted.<\/p>\n Since the unending tragedies<\/a>\u00a0of Michael Komape and Lumka Mketwa\u2019s respective and combined deaths, studies have \u201cstrongly argued for the total eradication of pit latrines in all South African schools<\/a>, especially those located in the rural areas and informal settlements.\u201d Anything less would be a gross violation of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Others have noted<\/a>, with a sense of urgency, \u201cThe right to basic education of a child is a requirement of human dignity. South Africa, through its new dispensation and conformity with human rights laws, is expected to transform and be consistent with the provision of the Constitution of 1996 that promotes and protects the best interest of the child.\u201d Pit latrines are not in the best interest of the child. Meanwhile \u2026<\/p>\n