Understanding the surge in SA kidnappings

Tswelopele Makoe

SOUTH Africa, our society, is being consumed by a mounting and deeply unsettling crisis - one that is easy to overlook, until it reaches your doorstep. Every day, two people are kidnapped in our society. In the last year alone, over 17,000 kidnapping cases were reported by Statista. This amounts to a harrowing 260% increase over the last decade.

These astonishing figures do not even encapsulate the whole picture. Rather, they are part of a larger, far more disturbing trend: the rise of disappearances in our society. From the bravest of men to the most delicate children, women, professionals, and so many other ordinary citizens everywhere are being snatched from our streets, never to be seen again.

From the eerie disappearance of journalist Sibusiso Aserie Ndlovu and his partner Zodwa Mdhluli to the action-packed abduction of US pastor Josh Sullivan, there seems to be vulnerability in our society that is being sorely exploited.

Very recently, the kidnapping of a Gqeberha shop owner has not only spotlighted the brazenness with which ransom kidnappings are taking place, but also the recurrent threat that they represent to the growth of our economy. Not even a year ago, Gqeberha businessman Calvin Naidoo was abducted in the very same way.

This disturbing trend seems to extend beyond ages and locations, with defenceless children being amongst the most affected. This past Tuesday, 11-year-old Jayden Lee’s body was traumatically discovered on a staircase at his home. Concurrently, the heart-wrenching case of 6-year-old Joshlin Smith came to a head as the High Court’s Western Cape Division officially convicted her mother, Jacquen Rowhan Appollis (alongside Steveno Dumaizio van Rhyn and Racquel Chantel Smith), for the Trafficking and ultimate slavery of the young girl.

According to the South African Government, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) revealed that kidnappings reported to the police in South Africa have almost quadrupled over the last decade, amounting to a whopping 260%. A concerning majority of kidnappings involved ransom and extortion tactics, showing an inclination to organised crime. These distressing statistics do not even consider many more of those who remain unreported.

Over and above this, the rampant rate of disappearances in our society is not only attested to armed robberies and organized crime syndicates; it is exacerbated by extremely stringent economic conditions that perpetuate crimes such as these. Poverty, crime, joblessness, unequal access, unstable human rights, and many other factors, directly perpetuate this disturbing plague in our society. This is even further compounded by cultural practices that worsen the vulnerability faced by men, women and children at various stages, and that seek to protect necromancers and malicious spiritual healers.

Additionally, the role of culture and indigenous heritage was especially spotlighted during the Joshlin Smith trial, where the State's accused-turned-witness, Laurentia Lombard, detailed the horrific details in the hours leading up to the six-year-old's disappearance, admittedly selling the child to a sangoma for R20 000. Hers is not a unique story, as merely a year ago, sangoma Ntombentsha Limbo was apprehended during the kidnapping of a minor child from a mall in Thabong, Free State. Yet as recently as this past Wednesday, a son and mother were snatched from the street and promptly robbed in the Northmead community of Benoni, Gauteng province.

Although our post-apartheid democratic society is plagued by rampant economic inequality, institutional instability, political corruptions, and so much more, the increasing precariousness of our society will only seek to cripple our already-fragile back. The increasing spate of disappearances of people from our society, of all ages and ranges, highlights a deplorable trend indeed.

The disappearance of people from our society is indicative of an overarching problem of human trafficking and human smuggling. South Africa, facing an unprecedented crisis with its precarious borders, is especially susceptible to exploitation by human trafficking syndicates. This is an even greater concern for young children, many of whom travel extensive distances daily, and who cannot be tracked as easily as adults with digital footprints.

What’s worse is that human trafficking disproportionately affects women and young girls, at a rate of approximately 70%. A major factor driving human trafficking cases is the job market, where unemployed people everywhere are being lured in for job interviews and then being subsequently human trafficked.

Whether it is a young couple getting hijacked on a sunny Sunday afternoon or a group of young school children crossing the park to their respective homes, our society is fast becoming a breeding ground for evil, nefarious deeds. The rate at which people are vanishing in our society is not just a chilling statistic; it is a sobering realisation that everywhere, our daughters, sons, sisters, and mothers’ lives are being swallowed by a shadowy underworld thriving on exploitation and silence.

This crisis cannot be tackled with reactive policing or short-term campaigns. It demands a serious, coordinated response rooted in swift, effective justice and our constitutional human rights. We need proper mechanisms and training that will allow our law enforcement to tackle missing persons cases seriously from the outset. We need a centralised, transparent, national database that tracks these past and ongoing cases, and utilises the public as a resource to tackle these cases. This will require the collective efforts of all of our communities, schools, institutions, legislative bodies, and civil society. Tackling disappearances across our society will require us to prevent abductions before they occur, and to support the families who are left behind when they do.

Above all, we need to confront the conditions that make people easy targets: poverty, inequality, lack of opportunity, and broken trust in public institutions. These are not abstract issues; they are the breeding ground for the crisis we now face.

There is something fundamentally wrong when so many people can vanish in a democratic society. It points to a breakdown, not just in public safety, but in the basic fabric of trust and care that holds a nation together. We are watching a crisis unfold in real time, and the danger is not just to individuals or isolated communities. This is a national problem, one that threatens the shared future we’ve been trying to build since the dawn of democracy in 1994.

South Africa is teetering on the edge of a crisis that’s expanding at an alarming rate. Our democracy was born from Struggle, with the promise of dignity, safety, and equality for all. If we allow this crisis to continue in silence, we fail that promise. We must take this seriously before we become the kidnapping capital of the world. Because when disappearances become the norm, and when justice becomes rare, we lose more than individuals - we lose faith in the society we’re trying to build.

* Tswelopele Makoe is a Gender and Social Justice Activist and the Editor at Global South Media Network. She is also an Andrew W. Mellon scholar at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, UWC. The views expressed are her own.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.