The Elsburg SAPS have adopted a zero-tolerance approach to people who neglect or abuse children in their policing area.<\/p>\n
The GCN caught up with newly appointed station commander for the Elsburg SAPS Col Veeshani Arikum on Thursday, to find out more about the police’s stance.<\/p>
Arikum said that child neglect and abuse in Elsburg is of great concern.<\/p>\n
“Elsburg has a lot of poverty and people’s socio-economic circumstances often lead to other social crimes,” she said.<\/p>
“This is why the Elsburg SAPS, along with concentrating on their normal priority crimes, will be putting great focus on social crimes.”<\/p>\n
Social crimes include drug abuse, child neglect, child abuse, domestic violence and sexual offences.<\/p>\n
Arikum said many of these crimes are liquor-related and, to this end, they will also be looking at both legal and illegal liquor outlets.<\/p>\n
Recently, the Elsburg police have been dealing with an increasing number of child neglect cases.<\/p>\n
In one of the cases, members recently picked up a two-year-old girl walking on the railway line in Rondebult, after receiving a complaint from members of the community.<\/p>\n
They picked up the child at about noon and only at 5pm that day was a message received on their Whatsapp message line that a child was missing in the area.<\/p>\n
“Allegedly the mother was at work and had left the child in the care of her father,” Arikum said.<\/p>\n
“However, the father had to go somewhere and left the little girl in the care of a neighbour.”<\/p>\n
The father was arrested by the police for child neglect and his case is currently in court.<\/p>\n
In another incident, police members saw an extremely drunk mother walking with her child in the streets of Elsburg.<\/p>\n
The police approached her and asked her to accompany them to the station.<\/p>\n
While the social workers and police members were busy with the woman, organising the paperwork to have the child placed in a place of safety, the woman’s friend (also drunk) came and took the two-year-old child, who suffers from alcohol syndrome.<\/p>\n
“The police managed to track her down in the Rondebult squatter camp and both the mother and her friend were arrested,” Arikum said.<\/p>\n
“The child has been placed in a place of safety for six months by social workers.<\/p>\n
“We are also aware of certain places in Elsburg and parents who have been using drugs in the presence of their children and these matters are being dealt with.”<\/p>\n
Arikum, who has been a police officer for 23 years and a station commander for eight years, has a passion for children and is going to put a lot of energy into ensuring that the children and future leaders of our country and kept safe in her policing area.<\/p>\n
“Being a police officer is my job, challenge and passion and I wake up every day with the purpose of making a difference in the life of just one person – whether it is one of my members or a member of the public, I must make a difference,” she said.<\/p>\n
Arikum told the GCN that the police will also be concentrating on the elderly.<\/p>\n
The Old Persons Act 13, 2006, has recently been proclaimed and this Act ensures that elderly people, women, 60 years and older, and men, 65 years and older, are protected.<\/p>\n
“If you treat an elderly person in a way that is abusive, be it verbal, physical or economic, you can and will be arrested,” Arikum said.<\/p>\n
The Act also protects senior citizens who are thrown out of their homes by their children, or are thrown out of their children’s homes.<\/p>\n
“We can ask the child to leave the house, even their own, if they do such a thing,”Arikum explained.<\/p>\n
“A person found to be abusing an older person in this manner will be arrested and appear in court within 24 hours,” she said.<\/p>\n
Another project in which the police want to get involved is to start a food scheme for 120 children at a local primary school, hopefully food gardens at schools and within the community can then follow at a later stage.<\/p>\n
“If you start with small things, they can grow to great things,” Arikum said.<\/p>\n