THE MISSING CHILDREN OF SOUTH AFRICA…….MISSING CHILDREN SOUTH AFRICA

[Nat Quinn]

There are children who have been missing for years and their cases have gone cold as no new leads pertaining to their whereabouts have come to light.
The Joshlin Smith case has once again highlighted the dire pandemic of missing children in South Africa.
Seven-year-old Joshlin from Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape went missing on February 19,2024 at around 5 pm.
While she remains missing for nearly two months, her story has made headlines locally, nationally, and internationally.
While hundreds of children remain missing, they do not get the same exposure.
Days before Joshlin’s disappearance, a teenager from Gugulethu, Ongeziwe Kamlana, 17, a Grade 12 learner at Fezeka High School went missing on February 17.
Her distraught mother was turned away by police.
After media attention, the mother could open a missing person’s report, however, almost a month later, a burnt body found on the other side of Cape Town was identified as that of the teenager.
According to Missing Children South Africa, 77% of children are found, but it sadly leaves 23% of children who are either never found, found deceased or trafficked and its last figures received by the South African Police Service (SAPS) stated a child goes missing every five hours in South Africa.
Criminologist and National Coordinator for Missing Children South Africa, Bianca van Aswegen statistics only give a general indication of the situation we face as many cases go unreported for reasons such as living in rural areas and being unable to open a case, or families being threatened, especially in kidnapping cases. She said the problem is far worse than the stats will ever be able to tell us.
Van Aswegen said there has been an annual increase in the number of missing children reported to the organisation.
“Yearly, we see an increase in the number of cases being reported to our organisation. Kidnappings and human trafficking have escalated in our country,” Van Aswegen said.
“We have various reasons why children go missing this includes children running away from home, mostly due to abuse, children that get lost such as our mentally challenged children, then we have kidnappings that happen such as ransom demand kidnapping, parental abductions, and opportunistic kidnappings,” she said.
“Human trafficking happens for various reasons, sexual exploitation, forced labour, illegal adoptions, organ trafficking, and begging rings.”
When asked where do the missing children usually end up?
Van Aswegen responded: “It really depends on the type of case that we are dealing with as there are so many reasons why children go missing, depending on the case will depend on the outcome.

SOURCE: IOL, Crime and Courts, 25/12/2024.

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