BY: Tshedza Mufamadi
Eersterust protest community protesting against GBV and Drugs
Eersterust community members celebrate their women’s day with a protest against Gender Based Violence and Drug abuse in the community. The community of Eersterust have been facing a lot of Gender Based Violence and drug abuse which has also led to people losing their lives. The community gathered and decided to do a protest to stand against the crime happening in their community.
The march started at the Riverside flats where community member decided to meet up and the police where also there to accompany the community throughout all the locations they were marching to.
The community made a peaceful protest throughout Eersterust which also represented that all they want is to provide the community with peace. The peaceful march was also directed with South African Police Services (SAPS) and while the community were protesting, they also went to Eersterust Police station to find information about the drugs and the issues of GBV.
Eersterust Police giving feedback to the community
The community also wrote a list of things that they aim to achieve at the protest some of them where: We want justice, we want our community restored, we want our families saved, we want ou
r children freed from drugs, we want peace in our community, we want hope restored, we want our Eersterust SAPS to know that we are not backing down from saving our community and more.
Dale Borens the founder of the group Eersterust Community For Equal Rights said, “We need to stop this thing before it gets out of hand and before children lose their lives. It It doest’ mean if our government is failing, we must fail our children we need to unite and take back Eersterust. We need drug dealers to stop killing their own and they need to stop selling drugs because drugs destroy families and children, and it creates a lot of bad things.”
Shaun browns a member of the com
munity who was also in the protest said that as the community we have a lot of problems especially drugs and GBV and some of the problems have not been fixed so as the community the protest is all about standing against these issues and open the door for change for all the youth.
The Eersterust police captain provided the community with a memorandum and was read to the community. The c
aptain also said to the community that he needs 14 days to cover everything, and he will give the feedback to the community on what is the way forward and he also said that he wants the community members to work with SAPS to stand against GBV and Drug Abuse.