Zero-tolerance to the abuse of children

The Elsburg SAPS have adopted a zero-tolerance approach to people who neglect or abuse children in their policing area.

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.

Arikum said that child neglect and abuse in Elsburg is of great concern.

“Elsburg has a lot of poverty and people’s socio-economic circumstances often lead to other social crimes,” she said.

“This is why the Elsburg SAPS, along with concentrating on their normal priority crimes, will be putting great focus on social crimes.”

Social crimes include drug abuse, child neglect, child abuse, domestic violence and sexual offences.

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.

Recently, the Elsburg police have been dealing with an increasing number of child neglect cases.

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.

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.

“Allegedly the mother was at work and had left the child in the care of her father,” Arikum said.

“However, the father had to go somewhere and left the little girl in the care of a neighbour.”

The father was arrested by the police for child neglect and his case is currently in court.

In another incident, police members saw an extremely drunk mother walking with her child in the streets of Elsburg.

The police approached her and asked her to accompany them to the station.

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.

“The police managed to track her down in the Rondebult squatter camp and both the mother and her friend were arrested,” Arikum said.

“The child has been placed in a place of safety for six months by social workers.

“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.”

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.

“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.

Arikum told the GCN that the police will also be concentrating on the elderly.

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.

“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.

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.

“We can ask the child to leave the house, even their own, if they do such a thing,”Arikum explained.

“A person found to be abusing an older person in this manner will be arrested and appear in court within 24 hours,” she said.

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.

“If you start with small things, they can grow to great things,” Arikum said.