SA’s vanishing children crisis

SOUTH  Africa cannot answer the most basic question about its children: how many of them vanish each year. What it does know is chilling; hundreds, possibly thousands, are never found, leaving loved ones heartbroken and without closure.

Children disappear for many reasons; abduction, kidnapping, human trafficking and sexual exploitation, while others are murdered. 

The police do not include missing children in their regular crime statistics. 

In May Saps said that 2963 children were reunited with their families since 2020 - 1919 girls and 967 boys. Experts say the figures are not a true reflection of the crisis. 

“Saps last released stats in 2013 specifically on children going missing,” said Bianca van Aswegen, a criminologist and the national co-ordinator for Missing Children South Africa, 

“Even if we had statistics on children going missing, it's still only a small amount. Many cases go unreported, especially in rural areas. Families are also exploiting them for trafficking.”  

Van Aswegen says underreporting reasons include a lack of trust in the police or not knowing the reporting procedure. 

Sometimes social media posts are created about missing children, but it's not an official missing persons case because it's not reported to Saps. 

Van Aswegen says the number of cases they receive increases annually. “We're seeing children going missing from school, children going missing from home, children going missing from shopping centers. We're really seeing it everywhere.” 

Another complication is that the police’s missing persons list is not updated regularly. “There's a lot of people on there that have already been found that are still listed as missing. There's also a lot missing whose details are still not being crculated,” Van Aswegen noted. 

She says missing children must be reported immediately; there’s no 24 hour waiting period.  “That's an absolute myth…it needs to be reported to your nearest police station immediately,” 

The disappearance of Joshlin Smith from her home in a fishing village in the Western Cape is one of the most well-known cases of missing children. Despite a highly publicised court case and the conviction of three people, including her mother, on kidnapping and human trafficking charges,  Joshlin has never been found. 

In May, Mojalefa Savhuli, aged three, disappeared, and his body was only found several days later in a stream in Roodepoort, at least 2km from where he was last seen. 

Jacqui Thomas, the director of The Pink Ladies, says they use their network of thousands of volunteers to get the word out about missing children immediately. 

“There is a huge uptick in child missing cases over the period November to February every year, more specifically during school holidays and around exam times. Unfettered use of and unsupervised access to technology also plays a huge role in this,” Thomas said.  

Dr Shaheda Omar, clinical director at the Teddy Bear Foundation says the police stats don’t reflect the severity of the problem. 

“They said that 77% of the children were found, but there's no information on what happened to the other 23%. “We know that children are murdered on a daily basis, and every few hours, a child goes missing, but that's definitely not an accurate reflection,” said Omar.  

Another challenge is the negative response of police officers, says Omar. 

“Many of our officers and officials are overloaded, stressed, and have a lack of sensitivity, training or skills. “The first thing the police officer will say is ‘did you have a fight with your child? It's normal, children run away, or maybe your daughter runs away with her boyfriend’. So there isn't immediate action and it's not taken seriously.”

Omar warns that South Africa is failing its children. 

“After 60 days that case has gone cold and a parent or a caregiver will get an SMS from Saps stating that if you have any further information, please contact us.” 

Megan van Briede the programmes director at Save The Children South Africa says that the statistics show that only one in four children that are reported missing are found, an alarming figure given that 2000 children were reported missing in the last three years. 

“That would mean that many children remain unaccounted for and those are of the children whose reports were formerly taken by the police. That would still be quite high especially when we're thinking of children in rural areas, we also find there's underreporting in migrant communities because they are reluctant to go to the police.”

Another challenge, she says, is that when the missing children are between 16 and 18, the police generally assume they have run away from home.  

“And these are the young girls that fall into trafficking rings and are exploited because of our stereotyping,” said Van Briede. 

Dr Monique Emser from the University of KwaZulu-Natal who has done extensive research into the issue of missing children says publicly accessible statistics are hard to find. 

“What is consistent across the literature, however, is that the longer a child remains missing, the greater the risk of harm. Children who are not located quickly are more likely to fall victim to crime or to engage in harmful behaviours as a means of survival. These risks underscore the need for reliable, regularly released, and disaggregated statistics. 

“Without such data, it is extremely difficult to design evidence-based interventions, identify patterns and trends over time, or understand how missing-children cases intersect with other crimes and social issues. Comprehensive and transparent data systems are essential for effective prevention, early detection, and coordinated child protection responses.”

Emser said that South Africa has a range of reporting mechanisms to locate missing children, from the SAPS Missing Persons Bureau to specialised NGOs. In many cases, they achieve high recovery rates, with NGOs rapidly alerting communities via social media — sometimes within minutes - which can save lives. 

However, families are often still turned away from police stations and told to wait or they simply refuse to open cases. “These delays can have fatal consequences, especially for younger children or those at risk of exploitation," said Emser. 

She said in high-crime or resource-poor areas missing children are often not prioritised, especially when older children are involved. 

In other instances police stations are slow to send reports to its Bureau for Missing Persons, causing delays and compromising early search efforts. Another problem is police corruption and complicity in trafficking cases which further undermine trust. 

Emser says even the Amber Alert system, launched in 2020 via Facebook and Instagram, reaches few people and depends on strict criteria and public awareness.

“We need to build robust, technology-enabled, and well-coordinated systems with clear policies, adequate resources, and strong community involvement to improve the speed and effectiveness of tracking and recovering missing children,” she said.

Dr Colin Thakur, an IT expert from Unisa says that globally Amber Alerts are standard public safety tools used in Australia since 2015, while Europe’s AMBER Alert network coordinates cross-border rescues. He says the UK’s Child Rescue Alert interrupts television and radio broadcasts and floods digital billboards and social media. The Netherlands, he says, operates one of the world’s most sophisticated systems, using SMS, email, apps, and social media to reach millions within minutes.

In 2020, Thakur wrote a series of columns urging Saps to adopt the Amber Alert system in partnership with Meta (then Facebook).

“The call was initially met with silence. Then, to much celebration, SAPS and Meta launched Amber Alert South Africa, the first of its kind on the continent. “...but once the cameras were off and the press releases archived, the alerts themselves went silent.” 

Thakur says in South Africa’s version, when SAPS verifies that a child under 18 has likely been abducted and faces imminent danger, Meta pushes an alert to users within the relevant area. However, since the Covid-19 pandemic, no one has seen a single alert, even though Amber Alerts should appear on Facebook and Instagram within minutes of a verified case. 

“Amber Alert South Africa is not being used or not being used effectively, and in that silence, families suffer. The system exists. The partnership exists. The technology exists. What’s missing is consistent activation, public awareness, and accountability. And while systems sleep, our children, and our sisters vanish into silence,” Thakur said.

Despite repeated attempts, the police could not be reached for comment.