VANISHING CHILDREN CRISIS

Without proper statistics, children's organisations say it is impossible to get to the bottom of the problem

- WENDY JASSON DA COSTA

SOUTH Africa cannot answer the most basic question about its children: how many of them vanish each year. What it does know is chilling; hundreds, possibly thousands, are never found, leaving loved ones heartbroken and without closure.

Children disappear for many reasons; abduction, kidnapping, human trafficking and sexual exploitation, while others are murdered.

And the police do not include missing children in regular crime statistics.

In May the police said that 2963 children were reunited with their families since 2020-1919 girls and 967 boys. Experts say the figures are not a true reflection of the crisis.

"Saps last released stats in 2013 on children going missing," said Bianca van Aswegen, a criminologist and the national coordinator for Missing Children South Africa. "Even when we had statistics on children going missing, it's still only a small amount of the actual number. Many cases go unreported, especially in rural areas. Families are also exploiting them for trafficking."

Van Aswegen says underreporting occurs because of a lack of trust in the police or not knowing the reporting procedure. Sometimes social media posts are created about missing children, but it’s not an official missing person's case because it’s not reported to SAPS.

Van Aswegen says: "We're seeing children going missing from school, children going missing from home, children going missing from shopping centres. It's everywhere."

Another complication is that the police missing persons list is not updated regularly. "There's a lot of people on there that have been found that are still listed as missing. There's also a lot of missing children whose details are still not being circulated," Van Aswegen said.

She says missing children must be reported immediately; there’s no 24-hour waiting period. "That’s an absolute myth."