EDITORIAL: When broken girls become condemned women
Behind the walls of Windhoek’s Female Correctional Facility sit women whose lives are marked by deep wounds. Their stories, however tragic, are also cautionary – and must be confronted with empathy and uncomfortable honesty.
Christina Hatzkin and Bianca Engelbrecht recount childhoods marred by abandonment, violence, alcoholism and silence. Yes, they were failed by their families, communities and institutions meant to protect them. But there is another truth that cannot be avoided: Two men are dead because two women, at their breaking points, chose violence. We cannot sanitise this fatal conduct.
Both women speak of fear, desperation and emotional collapse – yet even within those circumstances, agency existed. They picked up weapons. Whatever the ingredients of their pain, they acted – and lives were extinguished.
Society must resist the reflex to romanticise offenders because their backstories evoke sympathy. Doing so risks sending a message that trauma becomes a licence to kill. It does not. Many people endure brutal upbringings, abusive relationships and crushing neglect – without resorting to murder. We must hold two realities simultaneously: Namibia failed these women long before they failed themselves. But when the moment came, they made catastrophic choices for which they must answer.
Both women now speak of healing, faith and regret. They deserve rehabilitation and a chance to reintegrate. But we must not obscure the truth that their victims never got that chance.
Their stories should ignite national introspection – not pity alone, and not condemnation alone, but mature recognition that both society and the offender bear blame, and both must change.
If we learn from these tragedies, perhaps we will raise fewer damaged children and bury fewer people killed by those who could not confront their demons until it was far too late.
Christina Hatzkin and Bianca Engelbrecht recount childhoods marred by abandonment, violence, alcoholism and silence. Yes, they were failed by their families, communities and institutions meant to protect them. But there is another truth that cannot be avoided: Two men are dead because two women, at their breaking points, chose violence. We cannot sanitise this fatal conduct.
Both women speak of fear, desperation and emotional collapse – yet even within those circumstances, agency existed. They picked up weapons. Whatever the ingredients of their pain, they acted – and lives were extinguished.
Society must resist the reflex to romanticise offenders because their backstories evoke sympathy. Doing so risks sending a message that trauma becomes a licence to kill. It does not. Many people endure brutal upbringings, abusive relationships and crushing neglect – without resorting to murder. We must hold two realities simultaneously: Namibia failed these women long before they failed themselves. But when the moment came, they made catastrophic choices for which they must answer.
Both women now speak of healing, faith and regret. They deserve rehabilitation and a chance to reintegrate. But we must not obscure the truth that their victims never got that chance.
Their stories should ignite national introspection – not pity alone, and not condemnation alone, but mature recognition that both society and the offender bear blame, and both must change.
If we learn from these tragedies, perhaps we will raise fewer damaged children and bury fewer people killed by those who could not confront their demons until it was far too late.
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Namibian Sun
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