COSATU Western Cape calls for farmers to be prosecuted for having implemented dop system in past

COSATU Western Cape supports the call for the stop of alcohol consumption during pregnancy to avoid alcohol foetal syndrome.

Cosatu calls for greater awareness raising at the public institutions and health care facilities about the danger of alcohol consumption.

Cosatu however demands that the farmers take responsibility for the areas that have the greatest incidence of alcohol foetal syndrome. Farms and rural areas have the highest levels of incidences of the disease which is directly related to the dop system.

Farmers must be fined for having implemented this system and be forced to fund the establishment of facilities for kids born with the syndrome. Farmers have come off scot free for having been responsible for this pandemic in the farming communities.

There should be a commission of inquiry into farms and farmers who implemented the dop system and got people addicted to alcohol. This inquiry must lead to imprisonment of farmers and their farms sold to fund the compensation to the affected families. Many farmers are continuing with the dop system in more sophisticated ways and this must be stopped.

The DA as the governing authority in the Western Cape must stop hiding the atrocities of farmers because farmers fund their elections, but must highlight the plight on the farms as the key area of the problem.

Decisive action must be taken to ensure that mothers are aware of the dangers and that perpetrators of the dop system are dealt with decisively to help stamp out a 100 % avoidable disease.

Issued by Tony Ehrenreich, COSATU WCape, 9 September 2015