Cape Town - The murder of a Cape Town girl days after her second birthday has once again highlighted how the most vulnerable in our society can slip through the cracks of the system that ought to protect them.
Two-year-old Zoey Petersen was beaten to death last Friday.
Her father, Christopher Williams, 32, has been arrested and charged with her murder.
Child protection groups said it was difficult to assess when the threat to a child was a relative, especially if a parent was accused of abuse.
In South Africa, the number of child murders a year is more than double the global average, according to a 2013 World Health Organisation report.
According to the report, “The epidemiology of child homicides in South Africa”, 1 018 child homicides occurred in 2009. The homicide rate for boys was 6.9 per 100 000 boys younger than 18 years, nearly double the homicide rate for girls, which was 3.9 per 100 000 girls younger than 18 years.
Zoey died on Friday, June 19, three days after her second birthday.
Neighbours claim they heard Zoey’s final screams inside her family’s Wendy house in Hanover Park.
“She sounded like a cat in distress,” the family’s landlord Zia Roman told the Daily Voice.
Zoey was taken to Hanover Park Day Hospital where she later died
Police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Andrè Traut said Williams had been traced to an informal settlement in Athlone and arrested.
It is believed Williams beat his daughter Zoey, crushing her ribs, and left her for dead.
Cape Town Child Welfare told the Weekend Argus that reports the little girl had been removed from her parents’ custody were incorrect.
“Extensive services were rendered to the mother and child concerned,” said CEO, Niresh Ramklass.
He said Zoey’s case was first reported to them after concerns that the child’s 20-year-old mother, Edwina Petersen, was allegedly using drugs and in “unstable” accommodation.
Petersen told them she had no ID, and as a result, Zoey had no birth certificate.
Ramklass said upon further visits, they were told that the father of Petersen’s child was abusive and “hit the child”.
“The mother confirmed domestic violence but not abuse towards the child. No evidence could be obtained that the child concerned has been abused.”
He said the drug tests conducted on the mother turned up “negative”.
Petersen and her daughter then moved into a shelter in order to escape “domestic violence”.
At the next follow-up, Ramklass said the mother and child had gone to stay with the father and there was “clear” evidence of substance abuse.
About a month later the centre had arranged alternative accommodation for Petersen. But two months later, she returned to live with Zoey’s father.
“She claimed that the father stopped using substances and that he does not hit her again,” said Ramklass.
“Many parents profess that they will never again hit or abuse their children. Many believe in corporal punishment as a form of chastisement and to correct behaviour,” said Patric Solomons, director of Molo Songololo, a children’s rights and protection organisation.
The Department of Social Development’s said it had also launched an investigation into the matter.
Sunday Argus