- A Grade 5 pupil has been abducted while waiting to be sanitised outside her school.
- Experts say kidnappers do not believe they will get caught.
- The identity of the kidnapped girl has not been released.
An 11-year-old schoolgirl has been kidnapped, barely a week since the Moti brothers were reunited with their family after they had been abducted three weeks ago.
Crime expert and owner of investigations and risk consultancy D&K Management Consultants, Kyle Condon, said the increase in child abductions and kidnappings seemed to be caused by the perpetrators' lack of respect for the law.
On Wednesday, a Grade 5 pupil was abducted by three men at gunpoint from EP Bauman Primary School in Mayfair.
According to the Gauteng education department, the incident occurred at 07:11, while the girl was waiting to be sanitised and screened outside the school gate.
The perpetrators were reportedly driving a new-shaped silver/white Toyota Yaris with the registration number JS 62 CS GP.
Crime expert Guy Lamb said there had been several kidnappings in different parts of the country, but there was not yet a clear trend or a pattern.
Lamb said the Mayfair child's kidnapping appeared to have been orchestrated by a criminal group.
He said:
Condon said: "The trend in kidnappings is that it happened in the street and sometimes it may appear as if it's a hijacking."
He added that the perpetrators did not fear the repercussions of committing these crimes in broad daylight because they were normally from other areas and did not fear the possibility of being positively identified.
"Kidnappers do not believe that they will be caught," added Condon.
Lamb added that there appeared to be a group of criminals up for hire, and individuals could contract them for kidnappings – similar to how assassinations were carried out.
"These people have access to guns and have experience with kidnapping. It's something we've seen with political killings and other targeted killings, where individuals start to develop specialised skills. These are individuals with a history of violence, who have specialised skills, are organised and networked," Lamb said.
Condon said they had seen an increased demand in security and bodyguards for children over the past two to three years.
The Department of Basic Education said it was concerned about child abductions outside schools.
Department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said it was an issue that required the entire community to work together, especially the security agencies, neighbourhood watches and individuals who witnessed these incidents, and to help provide information to authorities.
"The child protection functions belong to society as a whole, especially as these incidents happen outside the school premises," said Mhlanga.
Addressing the issue of the identity of the 11-year-old girl being withheld, Condon said that in some cases, parents had lost confidence in the police, and instead opted to obey whatever conditions were given by the kidnappers for the safety of the child.
Condon said:
In kidnapping cases, especially where the motive was financial gain, the perpetrators often reached out to the family and demanded a ransom.
Lamb said the family would usually negotiate a payment or, if the police were involved, an operation would be carried out to catch the suspects.
He added that the police's reluctance to comment on a case could be due to its high-profile nature or because the investigation was still under way.
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