Missing children number likely higher as many cases go unreported, says expert

CAPE TOWN - The Joshlin Smith trial has put the spotlight on missing children cases in South Africa.   

According to the latest police statistics, more than 2,000 children were reported missing in the past three years in the country.  

Speaking to Dan Corder on the Afternoon Drive Show on Wednesday, Bianca Van Aswegen, a criminologist and researcher at Missing Children SA, said that in her experience, many cases go unreported.

“If we go back to human trafficking, child trafficking, a lot of cases that we do see, and we can refer back to Joshlin as currently we don't know facts as yet but if a parent sells off their own children, mostly those children don’t get reported as missing.”  

Van Aswegen said if this is the case, the number of missing children may be much higher.

“Stats only really give us a general indication of the problem we’re facing, many of these cases go unreported, we’ve got people living in rural areas, we’ve got people that lack the trust in our police system, we’ve got parents selling off their own children, not reporting them as missing so we’ve got so many contributing factors that influence the statistics of children going missing in our country.”