SPECIALISED police units dealing with child and women abuse are set to be reintroduced in South Africa following a dramatic increase in child murders.
A task team from the Police Ministry will deliver a report to Minister Nathi Mthethwa by the end of the year on the relaunch of disbanded specialist units.
The news comes after a spate of grisly child murders and news of a sharp rise in the murders of under-18s.
“We are expecting a report from the task team before the end of the year,” said ministry spokesman Hangwani Mulaudzi.
“We want to revamp the unit in terms of capacitating it with old skills that we had lost during the restructuring. We want to get all the experienced officers back into the unit and deal with child killings.”
The units were moved to police stations to be closer to the public, he said, but this had not been making an impact. Many aspects had to be looked at in terms of human and material resources before a unit could be relaunched, he added.
Earlier this week, the ministry reported in a reply to a parliamentary question that 1410 children under the age of 18 were murdered in 2007/08.
The most murders occurred in KwaZulu Natal, where 370 children were killed. It was followed by the Eastern Cape, where 350 children were murdered, the Western Cape (277), and Gauteng (153).
In one case in June, the Khayelitsha Magistrate‘s Court heard how a three-year-old girl died after being stabbed 19 times.
Viwe Mnembe‘s body was found in bushes near her home after she had been held hostage, allegedly by her mother‘s ex-boyfriend.
In another case last month, a 36-year- old man was charged with the rape and murder of a 10-year- old girl, Montesha Kekana, in the Vredenburg area on the West Coast.
DA MP Debbie Schafer said statistics showed four children were murdered in South Africa every day and child murders were up 31% since the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit (FCS) was disbanded in 2006.
“Prior to this decision, child murders in South Africa were decreasing to 1075 in 2005/06. They have increased every year since then to 1152 in 2006/07, and then up by 22,4% in the last year to 1410,” said Schafer.
“The ANC‘s U-turn on this matter is to be welcomed, as it will genuinely benefit our attempts to address the ongoing scourge of crime.”
The DA applauded the announcement. “These specialised units are central to our safety and security policy framework, and their return is well overdue,” Schafer said.
A study by the organisation Resources Aimed at the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (Rapcan), released in March, confirmed that shutting down the units had been a failure.
Linda Naidoo, director of Childline, said the statistics were cause for immediate action by the police.
“These statistics are very distressing. We have noticed circumstances for children have deteriorated, especially in KwaZulu Natal. Children are being killed in a variety of ways, whether through domestic violence, kidnapping or organ trafficking. There has to be a review of the circumstances that are predisposing to child murders.”
Naidoo said a shortage of resources was holding back support for children.
“Often the police are the last to know about a child murder. What we need is a collaborative response.
“The Minister of Police needs to tell us what the way forward is. What are our plans forward to make sure we minimise the number of murders next year? Are there adequate resources to look after our children?” – Sapa
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