Attend to the boy child, pleads Western Cape top cop

Children’s rights organisations have expressed outrage at the significant increase in crime against children in South Africa, as 315 were killed and there were attempts on the lives of 490 others.

As the country marked the start of the 16 Days of Activism campaign on Monday, police crime statistics shows that 957 women were murdered between July and September 2024, an increase compared to the second quarters over the past two years.

In the Western Cape, 96 children were killed in three months compared to 59 children in 2023 and 55 in 2022.

There were also attempts on the lives of 245 children and 398 suffered from Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH), meaning they experienced assault that caused serious physical harm.

Provincial police commissioner Thembisile Patekile said the majority of the children died in gang related incidents and that urgent interventions were needed to work with boys, as most of these shootings were committed by boys. He was speaking at a media briefing on Tuesday where the provincial statistics were unpacked.

“There is an urgent need to attend to the boy child in communities as many murders were committed by them. In some of these cases the children will be shot by their peers who get recruited in gangs. They become victims and also perpetrators. We don’t want a society where children’s role-models are gangs. This cannot be normal. Parents need to work with us and the different stakeholders. We have resources to deal with GBV but need a whole of society approach.

“In the province the shootings are about turf, leadership, and when someone crosses from one gang to join another. We have deployed 100 more Anti-Gang Unit members in communities that are hotspots,” said Patekile.

Provincial CPF chairperson Fransina Lukas condemned the high child murders and said there was an initiative in the pipeline that included going to the ground level to understand the challenges and develop programmes to respond to the issues.

Molo Songololo director Patric Solomons said the escalation of violent crimes and murders by children against children and adults was of great concern.

“Many of the children we work with live in fear of being caught up in the gang violence and shootings that become part of their everyday life.

Our children are groomed to become killers. Many live and grow up in gang culture. Recruiting children into gangs is a common practice that goes largely unchallenged by the police and community. Lack of prevention and early intervention strategies and programmes are few. The high rate of school dropouts, poverty, substance abuse and violence are factors that put children at risk and vulnerable to being recruited into gangs.

“Children's easy access to illegal guns and other weapons highlights the serious problems we have. The police and prosecuting authorities must prosecute those who groom and recruit children in gangs. Community members and groups must do more to keep their children out of the reach of gangs. We must invest in multi-sector holistic prevention programmes,” said Solomons.

“Many children are victims of intimidation, bullying, harassment, robbery, assault and turn to gangs for protection,” he added.

Ilitha Labantu spokesperson Siyabulela Monakali said the country cannot claim to be making any real progress until children are free and safe from all forms of violence. “The majority of child murders in the province are always linked to gang-related violence, underscoring how deeply violence has permeated the fabric of society.

This normalisation of violence has reached a point where the boy child is socialised into an environment that conditions him to view such behaviour as acceptable.

“This troubling reality demands urgent attention, as young boys, particularly in the townships, are increasingly drawn into gang culture.

Exploited by gangs and lacking positive role models or supportive structures, these boys are caught in cycles of violence,” said Monakali.

ANC community safety and police oversight spokesperson Benson Ngqentsu said the crimes committed against children exposed the failures of the system to address the crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

Cape Times