Parents of five teenagers who went to an initiation school in Khuma outside Stilfontein without consent and got stranded on Wednesday evening, marched to the local police station, to open a case of kidnapping against the owner of the initiation school.
The owner of the initiation school, who identified himself only as ‘Thabiso and refused to give his last name, claimed that he had to kill a cow to open his practice and therefore, won’t release the children until the parents paid him.
He said he and a traditional healer were conducting rituals at the school and that the five teens responsible for soiling the grounds either had to pay for the damage or participate in the rituals themselves.
He said if the parents don’t pay up within a week, he’ll continue circumcising the teenagers.
“My traditional healer demanded R2500 from each parent, I did not call these children, they trespassed at my school, and they harmed me,” he claimed.
The parents were hoping that the police would escort them and help them free their children whose ages range between 16 and 19. The children allegedly sneaked out of their family home on Monday night.
The parents discovered only the following day that the children had joined their peers at the initiation school.
One of the parents, Gugu Mondi, is concerned about her son, who is seventeen.
“The owner should have sought our consent. People die there. He should have requested them to call us as soon as he saw them arrive, but instead, he grabbed them and is demanding money we don’t have,” she said.
More concerning to another concerned parent Thembinkosi Ximba was the question of the practice’s legality.
“I understand that if you want your son to go there you must sign documents, here they did not compel us to sign forms, already something is not right, we want our children released,” he said.
Captain Sam Tselanyane, a spokesperson for the North West police, confirmed that a kidnapping investigation had been launched. “After the investigation is complete, the police would assist the families in fetching their children,” he said.
However, this did not sit well with the families who feel wronged, and are now fearing that the Thabiso may ill treat their children now that he knew they filed a criminal case.
The parents who had gathered outside the station said: “We are even more disappointed, we thought we will go home with our children today.”
For his part, Kgosi Godfrey Gaobone, who oversees initiation school rituals at the North West house of traditional healers, was dissatisfied with the initiation owner’s handling of the matter.
“We will be conducting a thorough investigation of the institution and what he did was wrong and corrupt,” he said.
