Child trafficking – The crucial first steps to take and other disturbing facts
24-hour rule for reporting is a myth in South Africa.
Child trafficking is taking place at an alarming rate, not only globally, but also in South Africa.
Here are some steps to take immediately after your child is kidnapped or disappears:
• Immediately alert as many law enforcement agencies as possible. Keep in mind that the 24- to 72-hour waiting period that is applicable in the United States and popularised by many TV programmes before a person can be reported as missing DOES NOT APPLY in South Africa.
• Start where the child was last seen or known to have been. Speak to friends, teachers, caregivers and the likes.
Also Read: Several reports of human trafficking on West Rand in past two years
• Always have a recent photo of your child at hand that both the police and organisations such as the Pink Ladies can circulate. Also rally family, friends and the community to hit the streets and put up missing posters, not only in the immediate vicinity of your residence but also where the child was last seen.
• Once established where the child was last seen, try to obtain CCTV footage from schools, businesses and private residents that might have this technology installed on their premises.
• Give as much information and as accurate a description of the child as possible, for example, does the child wear glasses, have braces on his/ her teeth, have any out of the ordinary birthmarks or scars and exactly what the child was wearing at the iem of the disappearance.
• Search your own property and house thoroughly in case the child is just hiding somewhere.
• Don’t shy away from questioning anyone that might have seen what took place.
• If your child goes missing in a store or mall, inform management immediately and have them scour their CCTV footage. Once again, get law enforcement involved immediately.
There are however two other elements to the problem of statistics and research, namely sensationalism, and the frequent confusion that child prostitution is necessarily the result of child trafficking. In 2013, some researchers claimed that between 30 000 and 40 000 children are trafficked annually in South Africa, but this has been debunked by the fact-checking organisation, Africa Check. According to their 2013 report, “There has been very little research into the prevalence or patterns of human trafficking in South Africa. In part this is because it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain any accurate information about the real extent of criminal activities that go undetected. Most available quantitative research relies on the arrest and conviction of human traffickers.
“In 2010, the International Organisation for Migration conducted a Southern Africa counter-trafficking programme review. It noted that the organisation had assisted 306 victims of trafficking in Southern Africa during the period from January 2004 to January 2010. That is an average of 51 cases detected per year for the whole of the Southern African region. Fifty-seven of the 306 victims assisted were children.
“The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2012 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons states that between 2010 and March 2011, South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority reported that 235 adults and 13 children were victims of human trafficking. Of those victims, 132 were trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and 106 for use as forced labour. In ten cases, the purpose of the trafficking was listed as “unknown”.
“Neither report suggests a figure close to the claims that between 30 000 and 45 000 children are annually being trafficked for sexual exploitation in South Africa. The claims are also not supported by the available quantitative research,” said the report.
But for what purposes are children as young as three being trafficked?
• Child labour
• Illegal adoptions
• Child pornography
• Elite child paedophile rings. These have recently surfaced in both America and Europe and allegedly even royalty, politicians, and celebrities might be involved. The possibility is that South Africa could not be excluded, as in the infamous unsolved Gert van Rooyen case, as well as the allegations in the recent controversial book The Lost Boys of Bird Island by Chris Steyn and Mark Minnie (who subsequently committed suicide under suspicious circumstances).
• Occult purposes such as body parts for muti.
Do you perhaps have more information pertaining to this story? Email us at roodepoortrecord@caxton.co.za (remember to include your contact details) or phone us on 011 955 1130.
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