More than 25 000 children tagged on Cape Town’s crowded beaches

The City of Cape Town (CoCT) has devised a successful programme to promote child safety on busy festive season beaches.

The IdentiKidz programme has been running since 14 December at selected beaches and will continue until 12 January.

To date, 25 700 children have been tagged across the participating beaches, leading to 169 lost children being safely located.

IdentiKidz programme

The programme is the initiative of the province’s Department of Community, Arts, and Cultural Development.

Registration booths are stationed at each beach where parents can bring their children to receive a waterproof identification wristband.

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The full names of the parents and children are taken, as well as the contact details, home address, age, gender and a short description of their appearance.

In exchange, the child is given a wristband with a unique number that can be used to identify the child in an emergency.

“It is easy for young children to lose sight of where their family is located and get lost in the crowds. A number of the lost children in the past two days were not tagged,” said MMC for Community Services and Health Patricia van der Ross on Thursday.

“Parents and caregivers can rest assured that their information is confidential and is only used when their child is lost, and it helps us to keep your little ones safe,” Van der Ross explained.

Unclaimed children given to DSD

This is not the first year the programme has been in effect. The city reports that 133 730 children were tagged last year, aiding the reuniting of 302 families.

The beaches with the most registered children so far were Muizenberg and Mnandi, with 2 904 and 2 589, respectively.

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Camps Bay, Harmony Park and Gordons Bay followed, with 1 933, 1 815 and 1 486 children tagged respectively.  

The city employees manning the beaches collaborate closely with police, the Department of Social Development (DSD) and disaster management to locate missing children.

The city warned parents to keep their cellphones close in case of an emergency, as unclaimed children will be handed to the government.

“If a child is found on the beach, and we are unable to track down the family by the end of the day, the child is handed over to the Western Cape DSD,” confirmed the CoCT.

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