CRIME

Today, a female body was discovered during a community search for missing teenager, Chanelle Plaatjies. Chanelle was reported missing by her mother on May 28. We do not yet have confirmation that the body is hers nor whether there is evidence of any rape, but we do know this – Chanelle is more than a name, more than a photo on a missing poster. She is the face of a growing crisis, one that is swallowing our children, especially our girls, in silence and shadow. Gender-based violence and femicide are a national crisis, and the Western Cape is not immune. The statistics show that girls and women are no safer today, despite the province’s multi-billion-rand safety plan.

As we start Youth Month, running concurrently with Child Protection Week. We need to reflect on the environment our children are growing up in. When rape and murder become a normalised part of childhood in working-class communities, when children go missing and no emergency is declared, that is policy failure.

The Western Cape Government has once again turned to its favourite scapegoat, National Government, calling for the devolution of policing powers as if that alone will put an end to the bloodshed on our streets. This latest call comes in the wake of another tragic quarter of crime data that paints a clear picture that the gangsters remain in charge, and the Western Cape Government is still out of ideas. From January to March 2025, 1,068 people were murdered in the Western Cape. While the province recorded a 4% decline from the same quarter last year, it shows that 81% of all murders in the province occur within the City of Cape Town alone.