VHONANI PETLA
Durban — Over the past few weeks, posters of 4-year-old Bokgabo Poo circulated on social media, with pleas to help find her after she had been kidnapped.
The news was later shared that she had been raped, mutilated, and murdered. This led to an uproar on social media under the hashtag #BokgaboPoo, with people showing solidarity with the family but also expressing frustration with regards to the raping and killing of children in South Africa.
It was a reminder that South Africans exist in this cycle of trauma and uproar, where a child is killed, people express their frustration with the government, and sometimes, even protest. The uproar dies down, and after a while, another child is murdered, and the cycle goes on again.
It questions the efforts being put into fighting these cases of murder and abuse, as well as the consequences of this problem for families of the victims or generally people who must raise children in South Africa.
This, together with other cases of gender-based violence in South Africa, demonstrates that South Africans exist in a cycle of trauma.
A Unicef South Africa 2021 report sad that between October and December 2021, 352 children were killed, 394 survived attempted murder, and 2 048 were victims of physical assault. Unicef 2022 stats show that between April and June this year, 243 children were killed, and 1 670 were victims of grievous bodily harm.
These statistics demonstrate a war against children in South Africa, which needs attention and serious action.
Of most concern is that this is not new to South Africa: the abuse, kidnapping, and murder of children has consistently been a problem; a study by Matthews et al. in 2009 shows 1 091 children were murdered in South Africa in 2009. Yet 13 years later, we still face the same problem that seems to have no solution?
It is not like there are no laws to deal with these crimes. Chapter Two of the Constitution clearly stipulates that children have the right to be protected from maltreatment, neglect, abuse, or degradation; however, the reality of children and the statistics tell a completely different story.
It means, then, that the issue is not the laws but rather the effectiveness of implementing them.
What mechanisms are in place to ensure the law is adequately implemented? How has the police system been trained to deal with these issues? The justice system heavily depends on the capabilities of the police system.
The police and justice system need to play a central role in the fight against child murders. One of the first steps is to do away with paying attention to cases based on social media “noise”. It cannot be that gender-based violence gets attention or are dealt with if they trend on social media, are politicised, or have social capital attached to them.
This is problematic on many levels, but most importantly, it essentially means that people need to be talking about the crime for it to trend on social media and hence get adequate attention from law enforcement.
This has been seen in cases like #UyineneMretyana #JusticeforNamhla, #KaraboMokeona and #TshegofatsoPule, with political parties releasing statements, some form of paced investigation and politicians visiting the bereaved.
While this has yielded some success and progress for these cases and others, it cannot be that for one to get justice or for their case to get some form of attention; they have to be politicised or have a certain level of social capital attached to them. What would this mean for people who do not have any form of social capital or whose cases cannot get the attention of politicians?
The University of Cape Town, Children’s Institute Director, Shanaaz Mathews, argues that justice for children in South Africa is unacceptably hard to achieve.
But as a country, we cannot accept and live with the fact that the country’s children, women, and queer bodies exist as endangered, and at any point, their life can be taken.
Our government needs to be held accountable. NGOs, civil society, and communities can assist in the fight against child murders, but it is the government’s responsibility to lead the fight and ensure that it is won. Children should be safe in communities, and our government should ensure that.
Petla is a junior researcher at the Institute for Pan Africanist Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg
Daily News