WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2007-03-19 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
One child disappears every six hours in South Africa, according to shocking figures released by the police Missing Persons Bureau.
More than 900 children remain listed as missing on the bureau’s database and, all over South Africa, hundreds of grieving families go from day to day without knowing if a missing child of theirs is alive, dead, being fed or is warm – and if they will ever return home again.
There are mothers and fathers who live in hope that their children, some whom vanished without a trace and have been missing for more than 15 years, will return home.
And while the police say they have an more than 80 percent success rate when it comes to finding missing children, for 11-year old Annestacia Wiese, who will be buried on Saturday, it is too late – her body found stashed in the ceiling of her mother’s Mitchells Plain home last Sunday.
| ‘These crimes are not opportunistic and are planned carefully’ |
Pigtailed Annestacia was the eighth child to be murdered this year in South Africa, according to SAPS.
More than 1 500 children disappear in South Africa without a trace each year. Gauteng has the highest number of missing children, followed by the Western Cape.
Missing Persons Bureau commander Superintendent Fanie van Deventer also heads up the South African Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (Sacmec).
International statistics show that the crucial time-frame for finding a child alive is 72 hours, he said.
Van Deventer said he was “alarmed” by the approximately 970 children who remain listed on the police’s database as still missing. “We do not know whether they are alive, dead, or are being exploited sexually.”
| Many children are being abducted for sexual exploitation |
“If a child is kidnapped for sexual motives we have three hours to find them before the perpetrator is done with them and dumps them, alive or dead. In 95 percent of these cases the perpetrator was known to the family. These crimes are not opportunistic and are planned carefully.”
“After 48 hours, international statistics show that for every hour that it takes to find a child the chances of finding them alive decreases by two percent. After 72 hours you start looking for a body,” he said.
He said it was vital for people to notify the police immediately about missing children because of the dangers they might be subjected to.
At least 80 percent of children who went missing were runaways.In the Western Cape 330 of the 371 children who were reported missing were found, five of them dead, between February 2006 and February 2007.
It was just as important to find runaway children because on the streets they were at risk of being raped, murdered or assaulted.
Forensic criminologist Dr Irma Labuschagne warned that there was no single profile of child predators. Traits varied across the board from deep-seated psychological problems and jealousy to violent tempers. Warning signs included somebody who has strained relationships with adults, paid excessive attention to children and collected child pornography.
She said “South Africa is a very violent and sick society. If we do not make a U-turn soon, we might as well put the lights off.”
Parents play a crucial role in ensuring their children are loved, feel secure and safe so that they are not vulnerable to perpetrators.
National director of Childline Joan van Niekerk said the problem of missing children was complex. She warned parents that they should contact the police as soon as they thought their children might be missing.
“There is no law that says you have to wait 24 hours.
“The police are obliged to respond immediately.”
Van Niekerk said cases of teenagers running away from home because of abuse were common.
Tragically, there were also many cases of children being abducted and returning injured or sexually abused. Sometimes they were found murdered or never found at all. This often happened in cases when an abductor had a specific purpose or was a sexual deviant.
“We have dealt with cases in areas that are gang-infested, in which gangsters abduct girls and rape them. If they are lucky they survive, but many never do.”
She said Childline had also dealt with baby snatching by childless women.
Then there were the gruesome cases of children being kidnapped and their body parts used for “muti” or for witchcraft.
Cape Town mother Michelle Ohlsson, who heads Concerned Parents for Missing Children, said of the 132 cases she had dealt with, 110 children were successfully reunited with their parents.
This month it will be 10 years since her son, Matthew, disappeared from their home in Mitchells Plain in 1997. He was nine at the time.
Molo Songololo, a child rights organisation, has been lobbying the government for stronger laws to stop child trafficking, as it has been found that many children are being abducted for sexual exploitation.