Raised by the streets

No parent should experience burying their child.It is perhaps one of the hardest things in life - even if that child has been derided as a thug by the media.So too was the case this weekend when Sakaria Amateta, better known as 'Kablou', was laid to raise as his mother cried in anguish. He was gunned down last Sunday in Kangueehi Street at a bar in Wanaheda, after allegedly attempting to stab a police officer with a knife. He has reportedly been living a life of crime since the age of 12. In the aftermath of his death, the issue of the use of deadly force, and if it was necessary in this instance, has dominated media reports, which have also painted Kablou as the devil incarnate, or in other cases, as some kind of anti-hero. The reality for his mother was different. He was simply a son who had chosen a wrong path. It is critical to look at what kind of a society produces Kablous. In April we reported that nearly half of all active maintenance cases in Namibia's 33 magistrate courts are cases where parents, mostly fathers, have failed to honour court ordered child support payments. A summary provided by the Office of the Judiciary to Namibian Sun showed that out of 31 104 active maintenance cases before 33 of Namibia's magistrate courts, 15 097 are default cases. In Windhoek, 8 290 default cases are before the maintenance court, out of a total of 11 479 active cases. In these cases, fathers have abdicated or denied their responsibilities to their sons and daughters, who become more susceptible to being drawn into a life of crime. American gangsta rappers, with their allure of easy money and 'get-rich-or-die-trying' ethos have become surrogate fathers to our kids. Of course, it would be disingenuous to paint each child battling social evils with one brush, but the reality is that many mothers and grandmothers are raising young children on their own, with no father figure or fatherly influence. So when we tell the stories of the Kablous of this world, let us make sure that we are not adding to the crime scourge by simply being absent.

Raised by the streets

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Namibian Sun 2025-06-18

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Raised by the streets

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Namibian Sun 2025-06-18

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