Police spokesperson FC van Wyk said there are currently 14 cases of missing children under investigation in the province since 1994. Picture: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA)
Cape Town - For more than 20 years, at least 14 families in the Western Cape are still searching for their missing children.
Police spokesperson FC van Wyk said there were currently 14 cases of missing children under investigation in the province since 1994.
Ten of the children were under 12.
“The Standard Operational Procedures are applied to all missing persons. No matter age grouping.
“Each and every case receives urgent and immediate attention.
“Co-operation from immediate family and community members is the biggest challenge police face when it comes to missing person cases.
“Lack of parental and caretaker supervision is a huge concern.
“Children are left playing/wandering outside without proper supervision,” Van Wyk said.
In most cases, children were found dead after being raped and killed by family members or family friends, said Western Cape Missing Persons founder, Candice van der Rheede.
“The first hour is the golden hour, the child can be anywhere after that.
“It just takes about 30 minutes to get the child out of the township. “There is a baby that is still missing after the caregiver left the baby with a stranger to go inside a bottle store.
“When she came out the child was missing. The child is yet to be found. People need to know who they are leaving their children with. Children need to have someone supervise their kids at all times.”
According to Van der Rheede, with cases of missing babies, it was very difficult to trace the child because the infant cannot walk.
“It could be trafficking, it takes an hour to leave the city and once that child is out of the province it becomes increasingly difficult to find the child.”
Van der Rheede was instrumental in helping to find the bodies of 3-year-old Courtney Pieters from Elsies River and 10-year-old Chanel McCrawl from Manenberg, who were both raped and murdered.
She said there were children who have been missing for years, that she would never stop looking for.
One such case was that of 2-month-old Kai-isha Meniers, who was snatched by an unknown woman outside Shoprite in Bishop Lavis in April last year.
“After a while the case just goes cold, and the families are left with the heavy burden of not knowing where their loved one is, they cannot find closure. I am a mother and a grandmother that’s why I will never give up on those children,” she said.
Missing Children SA’s national co-ordinator, Bianca van Aswegen, said there were no longer statistics available to give a proper indication on how many children went missing a year in South Africa. “The last stats released by the Missing Persons Bureau of South Africa was in 2013.
“We do see an increase in cases being reported to our organisation yearly. This is of great concern.”
She added that children went missing for various reasons, including children who ran away mostly due to abuse; kidnappings; human trafficking and other crime related issues.
“Parents and guardians should educate themselves on safety measures that can be taken when it comes to our children.
“Educate our children from a young age on how to keep themselves safe. Parents and guardians are urged to monitor their children’s social media use, as that is one of the biggest platforms where children are groomed and lured for trafficking purposes.”
Activists emphasised that time was of utmost importance and there was no waiting period in reporting a child or a person as missing.
Anyone with information about any of the cases can anonymously contact Crime Stop on 08600 10111, or SMS Crime Line on 32211.
Cape Times