110 undocumented children rescued in SA in over a week

The rescue of 14 undocumented children who were being smuggled into SA is adding to a growing number of youngsters in the care of the department of social development.

The children, aged between four and 14, were rescued after Border Management Authority (BMA) officials intercepted a minibus taxi at the Lebombo port of entry on Friday.

This brings to 110 the number of undocumented children who have been rescued in just over a week and are now living in various centres across the country.

Just over a week ago, the North West department of social development said it had taken in 96 undocumented children who were rescued from a disused mine in Stilfontein.

National department of social development spokesperson Lumka Oliphant said nearly 100 new cases enter their system annually, growing from 657 in 2020.

These children come from various countries, including Mozambique, Lesotho, DRC, and Angola, she said.

Some were brought into the country illegally by their parents and later abandoned in SA.

BMA spokesperson Mmemme Mogotsi said the taxi had been stopped randomly to be searched.

Mogotsi said the 14 children were also handed over to the department of social development.

“They [officials] asked the driver for the documentation for the children and he could not produce them. There were other people in the minibus taxi but the driver was the only one arrested and the children were taken away.

“The driver was immediately arrested and charged with aiding and abetting illegal entry by the Immigration Act,” said Mogotsi.

Some of the children living in one of the centres in the country recalled how they arrived with their parents. 

One of them is Pretty* from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who vividly recalls the terror of fleeing her war-torn home to seek refuge in SA with her mother who later abandoned her. She stays at Kids Haven in Benoni, Ekurhuleni.

One day, she was a carefree child living in her home country and the next, she had to hop into a truck with many other people and start the long journey to SA to seek refuge.

“I think I was seven years old. I used to go to school with my sister in Bukavu, a city in the DRC. That's where I was born. And everything was going well until a war started.

“I don't know what the war was about. What I remember was that every day and after school we had to run home because we were scared that something might happen along the way,” she said.

Her father, she said, was a soldier and used to be gone from home for long periods and one day he got shot.

“So we had to go to the pastor's house. He's the one that helped us come to SA. We came here by truck. I don't know what day we arrived here, but it was in 2016 – a few days before my birthday,” said the 15-year-old girl. 

“Things were just kind of hectic because we were still young and my mom was panicking. She just wanted us to be out of the place as soon as possible,” she said, adding that she had not seen her mother in years.

Another child from the centre is 12-year-old Joshua* who also arrived in SA at a young age. He was found on the streets when he was seven.

“I was still like three years old. My grandmother and I were leaving DRC for SA but I would have to go first, she gave me to a person who was coming from DRC to SA, and I came in a bus. Then they dropped me off, and later I found out that my grandmother passed [away],” Joshua said.

BMA also arrested eight Bangladeshi nationals at the Beitbridge border post as they attempted to cross into SA without valid travel documents on Saturday.

They told authorities they were heading to Krugersdorp.

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