/ 13 October 2005

Cape Town children to be fingerprinted

Thousands of children in Ravensmead in the Cape Town area are to be photographed and fingerprinted in a bid to curb child abductions, the Cape Argus website reported on Thursday.

It said a campaign will begin soon at 17 schools and crèches in the area.

The exercise has the backing of some principals and the Western Cape education department, as long as it is done voluntarily.

The photographs and fingerprints will be kept in police files. Copies of the pictures will also be given to the parents and the school should a child disappear.

The initiative comes as a search for missing Ravensmead schoolgirl Natasha Jafta (14) is nearing its third week.

She disappeared during the school holidays on September 29, and was last seen walking with a man in Belhar cemetery eight days after she disappeared.

Tom Klein, ward councillor and chairperson of the Ravensmead community policing forum, said this is the police’s only lead.

One of the problems is that the family does not have a picture of the girl.

”We only got a photograph of the girl six days after her disappearance. We went to her school where we found one of her in her school uniform,” said Klein.

He urged parents to take photographs of their children.

Jafta was the fifth teenage girl who went missing the area in about five weeks. — Sapa