North police take more measures to fight child abuse
Children need the community and the police to protect them, say police amid concerns about unreported child abuse cases.
Wonderboompoort police are planning to host anti-child abuse campaigns annually to save children from being victims of crime at the hands of people who are supposed to protect and show them love.
“Together with our various stakeholders, we are planning to have child abuse awareness events in our area every year,” Wonderboompoort police spokesperson Constable Mandlakayise Zwane told Rekord on Friday, adding that some of their partners had already pledged support for the idea.
He said the initiative was inspired by the recent event in which the police and founder of Child Protection Hotline, Danie van Loggerenberg, launched a Wonderboompoort Child Protection Hotline last Friday to fight child abuse in the precinct.
During the event, police said they were of the view that a low number of cases of child abuse reported at the station did not depict the extent of the child abuse problem in the area.
According to the station’s head of social crime prevention Warrant Officer Malose Chipana, the police were concerned about the failure of the community to report child abuse incidents as that enabled culprits to continue their abuse freely.
It was highlighted that the problem was that some families close ranks when a child has been abused or raped by a family member.
Constable Zwane said the police had established this information through holding various meetings with community members as part of their integrated approach to fighting crime.
“We believe that having more campaigns on child abuse can play a meaningful role in encouraging residents with necessary information to report cases of abuse and help us protect our children,” he said.
He added that police-community partnership made it easy for the police to fight crime and that residents benefited from a safe neighbourhood.
He warned that failure to protect children may encourage criminals to abuse more children.
“We believe that, together with our communities, we need to play our roles effectively in order to protect our children who are actually the future of our country.”
He said children were unable to protect themselves and need all members of the community including the police to safeguard them and show them love.
ALSO READ: Cele visits ‘frightened’ Ga-Rankuwa police station
Do you have more information about the story?
Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
