A total of 867 children were reported missing last year, more than two-thirds in Gauteng and the Western Cape, police say. But child-rights groups estimate the overall number could be as high as 1 700 a year.
Not all disappearances are reported to the authorities, for a variety of reasons. These include threats by gangs and the return of young girls abducted for sexual exploitation.
”We don’t hear of the 12-, 15- or 16-year-old girls abducted for a few days, for example, to repay a debt. The families live in fear,” says Patrick Solomons, director of child-rights lobby group Molo Songololo. ”Children are also targeted for sex, often by people known to them, and as a bargaining tool, to make money.”
While more disappearances are now being reported, a big question mark hangs over how the authorities capture the details. ”Without them, we cannot see the patterns, why particular communities are specially vulnerable.”
Solomons says a key requirement is an intelligence-driven policing unit, which can work at grassroots level, without uniforms or sirens, to trace missing and trafficked children and those responsible.
Police say 1 128 children were reported murdered — 6% of all killings in the country — 22 486 raped and 4 829 indecently assaulted in 2004/05.
The South African Centre for Exploited and Missing Children estimates that 11%, of the up to 1 700 children that go missing every year, are never found.
Unfortunately many of those that are found are dead. In June this year, the bodies of Soweto’s Mbhele sisters, Lindiwe (15) and Nelisiwe (13), were found in a field 12 days after their disappearance. Last month, Marissa Naidoo (10) died in a suitcase after being abducted from school, while Veronique Solomons (8) and Juwaida Josephs (3) were found dead in bushes in Cape Town last month.
Factors contributing to child snatching are complex: family poverty, lack of support structures in poor communities and the myth that sex with a virgin can cure HIV/Aids. In working-class households children are more vulnerable when isolated during school holidays.
Lobby groups insist police should do more. While officers are obliged to respond immediately when a person is reported missing, not all station-level officers know what to do.
Democratic Alliance MP Mike Waters proposes using the cellphone network to quickly distribute information on children confirmed missing, and an official alert code to galvanise those in an area where a child disappears.
Police compile statistics on missing children as well as sexual crimes against and murder of minors, but abduction data is not separated into adults and minors. And, as South Africa has no anti-human trafficking legislation, cases of children snatched for sexual or economic exploitation are logged as abduction/kidnapping.
However, Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula’s response to a parliamentary question on kidnappings shows the crimes are increasing. In 2003 there were 7 303 reported cases, of which a quarter went to court, but were mostly withdrawn. In the first quarter of last year, 1 709 cases were reported, with Gauteng and the Western Cape topping the list.
Child Welfare has highlighted challenges of child protection: a child found in Yeoville, Johannesburg, was initially recorded as abandoned until investigation revealed the youngster had been trafficked for forced domestic work.
Florencia Langenhoven (5) of Elsies River disappeared on December 5 1993 and is still missing — despite a neighbour admitting to abducting her. It is believed she was sold for R25 000.
In August, Molo Songololo’s Stop Child Trafficking campaign kicked off, backed by the United Nations, the Western Cape community safety department and NGOs.
Criminologist Irvin Kinnes cautions that the increase of ”people hijacking” for ransom will continue under the worsening economic conditions. Targeting children is a long-standing gang practice to force compliance from parents, Kinnes added.
The mother of murdered Rafique Hardien (5), whose father is a policeman, is still thought to be in hiding after her asthmatic son disappeared last year. When his badly beaten body was found two weeks later, she received calls warning her to watch her other son.
In Mitchells Plain, where Hardien lived, a police task team, Concerned Parents of Missing Children, Bambanani anti-crime volunteers and neighbourhood watches are setting up a missing children task team.
Concerned Parents of Missing Children founder Michelle Ohlsson’s son Matthew (9) vanished in 1997 and is still missing. Offering counselling and awareness training, the cash-strapped organisation operates from the Ohlsson home backyard.
‘The police in this area are a pathetic bunch’
While the family of a kidnapped boy in Ennerdale, south of Johannesburg, was lauding the police and celebrating his safe return this week, about 20km down the road, in Eldorado Park, another family was slating police.
”The police were supposed to have reacted fast because the issue involves a six-year-old,” said Abu Ganchi, father of the late Gairoenisha Ganchi, who was abducted and murdered in Eldorado Park last Thursday.
When the family reported their missing daughter to the Eldorado Park police, they were told to wait 24 hours before a police search could begin.
On Wednesday Gauteng minister of community safety Firoz Cachalia concurred that the Eldorado Park police had made a ”serious error” in their handling of the case.
Community members, officers from the Soweto dog unit and 10111 emergency workers filled the vacuum left by the local police. A widespread search turned up the girl’s body in an abandoned area a few kilometres from her house the next day.
While a distraught Ganchi this week praised the performance of the Soweto dog unit, emergency workers and the forensic team, Yassien Haet, a community activist, believes recent events have damaged the reputation of the local police in the community’s eyes.
”The police in this area are a pathetic bunch — they are insensitive and there is no fair delivery of services on their part,” says Haet.
In contrast, the police reacted immediately to the kidnapping of Liam Aspeling (10) of Ennerdale on Tuesday morning, launching a full-scale search that included the air wing.
Aspeling’s mother, Anastacia, told a daily newspaper that the police had ”been so good and kept us informed of everything”.
Police found Aspeling on Wednesday afternoon in Freedom Park, south of Johannesburg. — Monako Dibetle and Tumi Makgetla