By Sholain Govender
For almost seven months "Mama" Lindi Masombuka has been waiting for her "stolen" nine-year-old niece to come home from school.
Now, after repeated calls, visits and pleas to the police for help to find Lerato Hilda Masemola - the child's mother was shot and killed in 2000 - Masombuka has given up and sits at home, helpless.
Lerato, from Pretoria, is one of almost 2 000 children reported missing in Gauteng over the past five years.
In the first four months of this year alone, 92 children were reported missing to the Gauteng Bureau of Missing Persons.
Of the 1 833 children reported missing to the police between January 2001 and February this year, 687 have not been found.
This week, Child Protection Week, the plight of these lost children is in the spotlight.
Patric Solomons, director of Molo Songololo, a Cape Town-based organisation that focuses on child protections and children's rights, says: "They (missing children) are held against their will, held captive, abused and exploited, drugged, beaten and threatened, raped and sexually abused, forced into prostitution, trafficked ...
"Children can go missing any time of the day and it can happen anywhere," he says.
"They disappear from their homes, schools, neighbours, friends, a street, park or shop."
These are the horrors that parents and guardians of missing children face daily.
As Musa Mbere of the social development department puts it: "You can look at a child on the street and never know how that child got there.
"Often they've been kidnapped from another community or province, and after they've been used and abused, they're abandoned."
Now, says Mbere, the government has commissioned the International Labour Organisation to investigate trafficking and abductions in an effort to find ways of reducing the number of missing children.
The story of Lerato is just one in the litany of the lost.
On the day in October that she disappeared, Lerato walked to school with other children in the neighbourhood. When she did not return, Masombuka started to look for her.
"Some said they had seen her, others said they hadn't. I walked to the Ezazi Primary schoolyard but it was empty. I came home and told everyone, and we searched everywhere, but we couldn't find her."
The family were advised to report to the Mamelodi police station.
According to the SAPS Bureau for Missing Persons, there is "no waiting period" when a child goes missing, yet Masombuka claims that the police turned her away.
"They said we should wait 24 hours - they told us to go look in hospitals for her."
The family didn't find Lerato at the local hospitals, and the child wasn't at school the next day.
Lerato's class teacher told the Masombukas that Lerato had been marked absent the day before.
Back at the police station, Masombuka filled in the missing-person forms and the police said "they would come to us".
After there was no response from the police, a Johannesburg aunt of Masombuka's intervened. She approached an inspector at the police station, and they found that the forms hadn't been sent on to the Joburg Missing Persons Bureau.
The role of the bureau, established by the police as a service to the community, is to answer the questions of concerned families and to do follow-up investigations on missing persons.
The Star tried several times to contact detectives investigating Lerato's case and was finally told that both were on leave and were no longer on the case.
The station commissioner was not available either.
"Police services need to improve and clear strategies for the reporting, search, investigation and recovery of abducted or missing children need to be put in place," says Solomons.
He notes that most abductions are committed by people known to the child.
"We need to educate children with knowledge that will ensure that they can detect a situation before it happens," he advises.
"Children must know who to talk to for help and assistance, and where to go for help."
Concerned Parents of Missing Children (CPMC) - a non-profit organisation established in 1999 - believes that children would not disappear "at this alarming rate" if constant awareness was implemented at school level.
Over the past six years, the CPMC has investigated 185 cases of missing children, tracing and reuniting 165 children with their families.
The department of social development, meanwhile, runs awareness programmes in schools, educating both children and parents.
And while everyone, from the police to NGOs and schools, admits that missing children have become a worrying phenomenon in South Africa, people like Mama Masombuka just wait in limbo.
"I'm pleading with the public to help me. The person who took Lerato - please, I just want her back home safe," she says.
It is a heartfelt cry, echoed by the families of the hundreds who have gone missing.
What to do when a child goes missing
Parents/guardians must report to the SAPS, as soon as possible, that the child is missing.
There is no waiting period.
At the police station:
- The relevant document
(SAPS 55a) must be completed.
- If a crime is suspected, the reporter/complainant must tell the police official this.
- The complainant must sign a form accepting responsibility for the report.
- Description of the child's features, clothing worn by the child, scars as well as circumstances of the disappearance must be given.
- A clear photograph of the child must be presented.
- Any notes/messages left by the child must be handed in to the police.
- Places frequented by the child must be listed, as well as names of friends.
- Give parents' contact number.
- The case will be registered, and a case number must be obtained from the police station. This is to assist the complainant with future enquiries with the Missing Persons Bureau.
- The original document will be taken to the bureau for circulation and broadcasting on the SABC.
- A copy of the document will remain at the police station and will be used by the investigating officer.
- The investigating officer will follow up all relevant information given to the SAPS. It will also be the officer's duty to keep in contact with the family.
When the child is found, parents or the family should contact the investigating officer as soon as possible so that the case can be withdrawn.