"One child goes missing every six hoursApril 14 2007 at 11:29AM
By Tash Reddy
A child goes missing every six hours in South Africa, according to figures released by the South African Police Service Missing Persons Bureau. And experts agree that many are the victims of child sex-trafficking gangs, muthi murders and even fathers committing infanticide to avoid paying maintenance.""Child protection services estimate that, in South Africa, one in three girls and one in five boys suffer sexual exploitation in some form and more than 2 000 children are murdered each year. Lerato Mailula, of the SA Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, said while many of the children reported missing are actually runaways, there are some who are killed by their paternal families to avoid paying child support."
"In many cases where children are born out of the wedlock and the mother is suing for child support, the child is kidnapped by the father and disposed of to avoid paying maintenance," she said. Lynette Prinsloo of the SAPS Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit, said she can't deny that it happened here, but there was no evidence to prove it. "When children are taken by their biological fathers, it is not considered as kidnapping so there is no real follow-up to check what happened to them," she said."
"In Durban, Asha Khelawan of the KZN Missing Person's Bureau said she was aware of a few cases but would not elaborate. Another major problem is one of child trafficking, where children are kidnapped and sold to the sex-tourism market. Last year the United States released a report saying South Africa is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for forced labour and sexual exploitation which experts believe is a major contributor to the number of children missing around the country."
"Molo Songololo, a non-governmental organisation that has been studying the child trafficking, said on its website that South Africa was becoming a second Thailand. Several sources identified the trafficking of children from KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng and the Western Cape and from the Eastern Cape to Gauteng and the Western Cape."
"Meanwhile, research by the SA Institute of Security Studies (ISS) showed that South Africa, in spite of being one of the most developed societies in Africa, has a frighteningly high rate of muthi slayings. South African Police Service statistics estimated the average to be anywhere from one a month to 300 a year.
"On the ISS website, Dr Anthony Minnar says: "We have children going missing every week from our townships. The assumption is that those missing children are being put into prostitution and also that they are being used for muthi murder."
excerpted from the original article which was published on page 5 of The Independent on Saturday April 14, 2007