DANGERS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

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Social media is like a daily bread to a lot of young people, and lately it seems middle aged and older people have joined in on the fun as well as businesses. When creating a social media account there are certain terms and conditions that need to be read then agreed upon for security reasons and it would seem that a lot of people choose to ignore this very important step. And because of that reason, social media is now being used as a platform for psychopaths and criminals to do their dirty work.

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Late last year there was a male in the North West of South Africa who was murdered by a young woman and her boyfriend after agreeing to meet the girl at a cemetery. The boy who was killed and the girl had been friends on 2go (social site) for a while prior the incident. The story was on the news and in most newspapers in South Africa and 3^rd degree (news documentary) did the follow up story early in the year. There was another famous story about a man who was raping women he had found on facebook and the famous mxit kidnap stories that most people would recall.

At first I didn’t really pay attention to all this, it hit me one weekend as I was sitting with my friend at home and got 3 calls from 3 different people who claim to have got my number on facebook, I realized how I wasn’t protecting my private and important information and immediately logged on facebook and removed all that important information. If people can see all that information about you on facebook, they will know where you live, work, etc and that will make it easy for them to plan your murder or kidnapping so make sure that all your important information is secure.

IZIKHOTHANE : WHAT VALUES ARE PARENTS TEACHING THEIR CHILDREN?

Izikhothane: The 18 boys

“Izikhothane” are a group of young men who wear expensive clothing, consume a lot of alcohol and go partying. However, most of these boys do not even come from rich families but the amount of money that goes into a day’s outfit can feed their families for 3 months. Ukukhothana is now a popular culture in most of the townships in South Africa particularly in SOWETO the most popular in terms of history and it being one of the largest.

Sikhothane mom: cutting edge SABC 1

The woman you see in the picture is mother to two ‘sikhothane’ boys, she is unemployed and lives in a 4 room house that is not in good condition and there she is on national television bragging about how expensive their clothes are. My argument here is what values are parents teaching their children? This woman is also the one who gives her boys money to go buy alcohol worth R 5000.00. when I first saw this on television last year I was shocked and thought maybe after people have seen the documentary this madness would stop. But to my surprise, it didn’t stop infact it got worse. Now there are Izikhothane everywhere and I don’t think that it is a positive culture to adopt. Part of being a Sikhothane is to tear money, pour drinks at each other and with all the hungry people all those things can be put to good use.

I believe that we can change the world by changing the way people look at the world. If someone can actually teach these young men piositive values, they might just stop the madness and put that money they spend to good use. And I think our country should have parenting school to teach people how to raise positive people who can bring about positive change to the world one day.

WHEN WILL ENOUGH BE ENOUGH?

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Rape is one of the leading increasing crimes in South Africa and all around the world and instead of rapists feeling any remorse for what they are doing, they are actually justifying it. Early in the year around January, I remember there was an incident where a young lady was being followed by a group of men in Noord Taxi rank in Johannesburg because she was wearing a short skirt. She was harassed and humiliated but the follow up of that case vanished in thin air. And if I remember correctly, an incident of that nature took place a few years ago in the same taxi rank where taxi drivers said; “if a woman comes in my taxi wearing a revealing skirt or dress, I will touch her because she would be asking for it”. I was still in high school and I remember telling my mom that I will not wear all my short skirts because I was so scared.

Woman all around South Africa live in fear of being raped and it seems to me that the system is not doing enough to stop this. In recent occurrences,   17 year old girl was gang raped by 6 men and two of these men are suspected to miners meaning they are under the age of 18. What shocked me when I read about this story was the reality of it, what kind of role models do these young men have. There are a lot of campaigns being done on rape but I feel that people don’t realize how important something is until it happens to them.

Here’s something I would like to live you with; Rape is like murder, when a person gets raped not only do they lose their dignity but they lose their souls and the scars never heal. Don’t wait for it to happen to you or someone you love. LET US STAND TOGETHER IN FIGHTING CRIME!

TEENAGE PREGNANCY: MISTAKE VS SOCIAL GRANT

teenage pregnancy

When I had the whole topic of teenage pregnancy on my mind I had that whole ideology that the increase of it is due to the social grant, but to my surprise that is not the case at all. I had an idea that maybe if they cancel the social grant then we will see the decrease in number of teenage pregnancy, but after what I discovered while doing my research, I realize that it has nothing to do with social grants but the wrong choices teenage girls make and often refer to those choices as “A Mistake”.

According to the human sciences research council(HSRC) the number of pregnancies among  girls aged 15-19 years peaked in 1996, two years before the child support grant was introduced, and has been declining ever since. In addition, only one in five mothers receives the grant. www.hsrc.ac.za/document-2027.phtm. I’m aware that teenage pregnancy is overrated and nobody really wants to talk about it but whether we pay attention or we don’t, it affects our society therefore is affects us and I believe that if we really take the time to think about it, we could come up with ideas that could make a huge difference.

Another issue I don’t get is how teenagers fall pregnant with all the sex education in schools. We know about condoms and other contraceptives but still fall pregnant and say; “It’s a mistake” okay let me get this straight, you know that if you have unprotected sex you will fall pregnant, you do it and expect not to fall pregnant? Whose fault is it really, are parents not talking to their kids about sex? Is it teachers’ maybe? Or the health workers are not doing their jobs well?  All I know is this is a serious problem that really needs to be dealt with not ignored because it leads to illegal abortions and suicide.

As the African National Congress (ANC) slogan so well puts it; “TOGETHER WE CAN DO MORE”. Let us not turn a blind eye, but act and save our nation.

Morden Day Slavery

Morden day slavery also known as human trafficking is one of the biggest social issues we face in our country. We have cases where by people are turned into different types of slaves but the most common slavery is sex slavery. In most instances, girls are moved from foreign African countries like Zimbabwe and are being used for Sex here in South Africa.

Most of these girls are teenagers younger than 19 and they are being put on drugs and most of them end up having HIV/AIDS. There are men and women who own these young girls and sell them to older men for sex and the money paid to these girls goes to those people who are also known as their "Pimps". This is something that has to be taken serious and dealt with.

Most of these girls don't even agree to doing this job, they are either kidnapped or sold by family members due to a poor background. It is really sad to know that there are young girls out there who never get the opportunity to get educated like us and live a free life where they make their own decisions. We really need to deal with these issues and not turn a blind eye...

DANGERS OF TERMINATING PREGNANCY

Termination of pregnancy also known as "Abortion" is one of the leading causes of teenage deaths in South Africa. Statistics show that a lot of teenagers die due to illegal arbotions. It is shocking to have such cases when there are so many ways of preventing pregnancy. The question here is why fall pregnant in the first place?

People have different views concerning this matter, most believe that it is killing and should be illegal; but if u get raped and fall pregnant? Would you keep the child and let that child be a reminder of what happened to you? Yes I know, thought provoking. People have different reasons why they decide to terminate the pregnancy, it is unfortunate that some of them end up losing their own lives in the process. It recent occurrences, a University of Johannesburg student who happens to be a classmate of mine was found dead in her residence room on Sunday after allegedly having done an abortion. We don't know why she did what she did though people feel that she should have known better as she was a student at a university.

whether we are for it or against it, arbotion remains a life threatening process, and even if the state decides to make it illegal, there will always be those back door places that will continue to terminate pregnancies and risk losing more than one life. All we can do is think of effective ways of educating our youth about arbotion and the risks that go with it to prevent lives being lost in future.

H.I.V FREE GENERATION POSSIBLE?

Looking at the behaviour of our youth, it is safe to say that It will take a long time before young people realise the seriousness of this HIV/AIDS issue. For some weird reason, the youth believe that they are invincible and "it won't happen to them". There are still a lot of stereo types and that will prevent us from reaching our goal of having an H.I.V free generation.

Alcohol seems to be one of the leading causes of the spread of H.I.V, when under the influence, a lot of young people in parties engage in unprotected sex and most of the time it's with poeple they just met. The morning after, all they worry is about is morning after pills which only prevent pregnancy and not AIDS. There's a team of young people who are currently doing research on this topic, and have confirmed thus far that after the unprotected sex, most of these young people don't go for testing due to fear of the outcome.

The music and the things they are exposed to may have a lot to do with their behaviour, take for example the new Snoop Dog song; "Living Young And Wild And Free" it is such songs that lead to the reckless behaviour which leads to them being at risk of getting infected with AIDS.

Even though most of the people believe the topic on AIDS is overrated, we need to adress it as it affects all of us in a way. The research continues and the question remains; Is an HIV free Generation possible?...

"STOP ECONOMIC APARTHEID"

 "STOP ECONOMIC APARTHEID"...Powerful words used by the COSATU Chairperson Mr Zwelinzima Vavi while addressing the members and everyone who attended the march at Johannesburg CBD on Wednesday the 7th of February 2012.

People showed up in large masses with the hope that the march will make some difference in their lives. The march was to protest against the toll gates and the labour brokers; they complained about doing a lot of work and being underpaid. Most of the people in the march complained that their wages is so little that they can't even afford to pay for their children's school fees.

Mr Vavi highlighted issues that most South Africans are often complaining about; poor transport system, exploitation of workers and he also added that the government is adding more problems than solutions. People feel that the government is taking from them instead of giving; it seems everything is being paid for but no one seems to know where all that money is going hence the majority of our population is unemployed, most government schools and hospitals don’t have proper facilities especially in the townships and rural areas.

If the people in Authority continue to turn a blind eye on these issues, the country will be faced with a catastrophe in the next few years. People are tired of living in shacks and places where it is not suitable for the human race to reside in. if the government doesn’t come up with an alternative solution that is effective and beneficial to all South Africans, strikes will only get worse and that will affect the education process and the economy in a negative way. This is the time to reflect and reshape our society.