Kidnappers jailed, mother and daughter still affected

A YOUNG Folweni woman will spend the next 20 years in prison and her mother 14 years for kidnapping a 6-year-old girl in 2010 and changing her identity.

The crime nearly destroyed the lives of the child and her biological mother, who hunted for her for almost four years.

“I was scared in a way I will never forget,” the mom said of that day in February 2010 when her daughter did not return home after attending her Durban city-centre school where she had just begun Grade 2.

“I lost hope… I would wake up in hospital not knowing how I got there,” she said in her victim impact statement, which she read out to Durban Regional Court magistrate Melodious Gwala.

The perpetrators of the crime – who cannot be named to protect the identity of their victim, who is now 12 – eventually pleaded guilty to kidnapping and fraud, and were yesterday sentenced for their “cruel and callous crime”.

The kidnapper, who was 22 at the time, approached the little girl as she was walking to catch public transport home, telling her she must come with her because her mother had gone to Johannesburg on urgent business.

After her arrest, she gave various explanations for her conduct, including that she had had a miscarriage and that she had been approached by two unknown men who told her to take the child.

While her own mother was not living with her at the time of the kidnapping, the older woman did come to Folweni and between them they gave the child a new name, enrolled her at a local school, obtained a new identity for her at Home Affairs and applied for a child support grant.

Three years and nine months later – in October 2013 – the police received a tip-off from an informer, and went to the school with the mother who found her daughter sitting in the classroom. She told her mother every time she had asked when her mom was coming for her, she had been told to “shut up”.

Arguing for tough sentences, prosecutor Priscilla Paterson pointed to the emotional and physical impact of the crime on the child and her mother, who remained traumatised.

The mother, in her statement to the court, spoke of how she was on medication for depression. “I have a problem with my memory. I became aggressive and I was ashamed because I was rude to people and they did not understand why. I could not live with my other kids because I could not even take care of myself. I could not take care of my business or my money in the bank,” she said.

Her daughter, who now lives with her grandmother, said her school marks were still not good ”although many things have changed in my life.

“I was living a hard life not living with my own mother. I was living with a family I did not know and where I did not belong.

“When I found out, I was confused. I still have anger and I don’t know where it is coming from.

“I try hard to forget what happened to me, but I feel pain. Those people must be arrested. They will do it to other children,” she wrote.