By Emily Mgidi
Are you short of a few mourners for your funeral? Well, you can hire them — and you can pick the option you like!
While some think the idea is ridiculous, others think it helps support families.
The mourners get paid anywhere from R300 for normal crying to R500 if they cry to the point where they even threaten to throw themselves into the grave.
Dorothy Mlangeni from Rockville, Soweto said she used to work for the Burnear Group but now works for another company that does the same thing.
She said when she left Burnear, she pitched the idea to her friend who owns a funeral home and they now work together.
Dorothy giggled when asked about the job.
“It’s easy. You just imagine the person who passed away was your loved one and you’ll cry a river of tears,” she said.
“People laugh and say it’s crazy and ridiculous but this helps me put food on the table. I’m a single mum who doesn’t have a stable job. This really helps me.”
The chairman of the Funeral Industry Reformed Association, Johan Rousseau, said that people benefitting from the emotions of traumatised families and making money out of it is nothing more than thuggery.
“This is even worse — increasing the cost of funerals while people are suffering without jobs in a declining economy and borrowing from loan sharks to bury their loved ones,” he said.
“They can’t even afford a funeral policy, hence the reason for pauper burials being on the increase.”
He said they were assisting people through their members.
Pictured above: A funeral
