Parents of young children are the first to speak out in outrage when a story of a child being kidnapped and/or trafficked appears in the media.
Calls for the people involved to be sent to prison for life or, preferably, sentenced to death abound and every parent has their say about these “scum of the earth”.
Among those blamed for enabling such crime to go unpunished is, as always, the government who are accused of not helping curtail these dastardly deeds.
Bring on June 1 (Monday this week) when new legislation came into effect making it difficult for parents to take their under age offspring out of the country without the consent of both parents, and watch as parents, once again, get their knickers very tightly bunched.
According to this new law, anyone travelling with a minor (under 18 years of age) must produce an unabridged birth certificate, and an adoption certificate where applicable.
Where the child is travelling with one parent or an adult who is not the parent, consent in the form of an affidavit from the other parent (or parents) must also be produced at the point of departure.
Where the other parent is dead or one parent has sole custody, a death certificate or court order granting full parental rights and responsibilities to one parent must also be produced (see a more details of the law in “What you need to know about travelling with minors” on www.springsadvertiser.co.za).
Suddenly (or not so suddenly actually as the law has been a discussion point for some time) those who have gone through acrimonious divorces, or unmarried parents who registered both parents’ names on the child’s birth certificate and now hate one another, need to put their discord aside temporarily and agree to allow their child to get a passport.
Rather than seeing the positive in a law which makes child trafficking harder to pull off, these parents (not all parents by any stretch of the imagination, but some) have yet one more thing to moan about.
They now have the opportunity to lament the fact that the government is forcing them to spend an entire day (yes, one entire day in the five year life of a passport for those under 16) with the person they hate the most in the world, as both parents have to be present when the application for the passport is made.
In the last two weeks, I have seen so many rude arrows shot at our government for the pain of spending time with an ex-spouse and the irritation of the application process.
This from the same people who would threaten murder or demand the death penalty for the perpetrator of a child trafficking act if it was there child who had been taken.
To hear some (not all) these parents speak, it appears that the government sat one day, with 10 minutes to spare, and came up with this diabolical plan aimed solely at making life hard and unpleasant.
It almost seems like they would prefer to take the chance of having their child kidnapped and sold into slavery than to spend a day in a less than comfortable environment with the ex.
But lets review the spirit of this horrible law our government has foisted upon those unsuspecting parents.
The law prevents one parent, or any other person, from leaving the country with a minor child under the age of 18 without the consent of both parents.
This means that parents seeking to travel need to get a letter from the other parent, which is not more than three months old, giving them permission to remove the child from South Africa.
Further, it makes if far more difficult for kidnappers and child traffickers to take your sprog and merrily leave the country.
It’s a law that hold your children’s safety paramount and ensures a little more piece of mind that, should your child be stolen, there are processes in place to keep the perpetrators from leaving the country, taking your child to foreign shores and ensuring you might never see them again.
It’s about safety and security, and parents don’t seem to like it, which to me is just plain odd.
However, if you really are feeling persecuted by the government because you need to swallow your pride and hatred for a day to secure a passport for your child then the solution is easy.
Don’t let them travel before they turn 18.
The bottom line is that parents should be embracing laws aimed at increasing the security of their children, not moaning about a little discomfort in a home affairs line.
