Johannesburg - He is officially an adult and has relinquished the protective walls of a safe house which afforded him three square meals a day, a warm bed, TV and education.
A school dropout who was forced to work as a farm labourer at the age of 15, Patrick Ndlovu had opted to forgo applying for bail, choosing instead to live in a safe house for child offenders for the past two years and three months.
His reasons: regular meals, his own bed and TV.
And, as he was released in a custodial sentence on Wednesday, it was not clear how life would change for the 18-year-old, who has an alcoholic mother and an absent father. “We are still concerned about the safety of the boy, [but] as we speak now, he is safe and he will be safe when he steps out of this court,” said his attorney, Zola Majavu.
He would not disclose details of where the teenager, who has completed three of the five programmes required of him, would live.
“There will be a systematic continuation to programmes he has already undergone [in the past two years]. Bosasa [place for child offenders] and [department of] social development have indicated they can continue to support him, but there’s a possibility he can be taken out of the country.”
Both crimes Ndlovu committed - breaking into Eugene Terre’Blanche’s home and a November 2009 crime in which he stole packets of peanuts, cooked pap and disposable teaspoons - were committed after his uncle relocated to Klerksdorp.
Ndlovu’s uncle Thomas, 30, has since moved back to Ventersdorp after taking up a job in Klerksdorp and leaving the minor with his “alcoholic mother”.
But what irks Majavu more is that he feels society did not make a lot of noise about child labour practices in the farming community, with the Department of Labour’s silence the loudest.
“No child, black or white, should be allowed to work in a farm. The Department of Labour hasn’t contacted me even once on this issue.
“Society has failed this child. Kids his age are in first year varsity, not still struggling with Abet 1, 2 and 3,” he said.
The Star