Daily, images of rape victims hog headlines and our defenceless grannies, mothers, sisters, boys and girls are at the receiving end. How long?
Having released their single ‘Save the Child’ the duo Alah-Yen from Mangaung in the Free State Province decided to throw their weight behind this scourge. Their track album is titled ‘Long time Coming’.
Save the Child is a single whose message is clear and simple: stop abuse!
The duo Alah-Yen follows on the footsteps of African music prophets, such as Stimela and Fela Kuti who employed music as their tool for social construction.
The track, which craftily blends raga, reggae and hip-hop, has a superbly laid melody with a harmonious keyboard sound reminiscent of the late great Lucky Dube’s music. In 1999 they released an album titled Sexy Cinderella.
“As a father I feel my 14 year-old girl is not safe in South Africa. I live in constant fear that anything, undesirable, might happen to her. What’s even more frightening is that victims of rape are brutalised by people known to them.
The government needs to seriously invest in rape awareness campaigns and rape should be treated as murder,” says Lehlohonolo Mokoena, who make-up Alah-Yen with Bongi Sithole.
“Please stop abusing us we are the future of the world,” goes the plea song by girl-children.
As a form of giving back to the affected organizations, the duoe stablished Alah-Yen Foundation in 2007, whose primary objective is to improve the quality of life for children and to help protect children, particularly from disadvantage backgrounds, and orphans of HIV/Aids.
To get the message across, Alah-Yen joined forces with local group Step-Up men’s forum to organize a Stop Rape demonstration and awareness event in Mangaung.
On the front, they’ve shared the stage with the likes of music exponents Salif Keita, Bebe Winans, TKZee and Zahara.
We hope and pray Alah will stop this demon slaying our communities!
