Lulu Xingwana condemns spate of child murders

A recent spate of child murder cases in South Africa has been met with outrage by the minister of women, children and people with disabilities.

“The barbaric actions of child abusers and murderers have no place in our democratic society," said Lulu Xingwana in a statement.

She said the net was closing on perpetrators of child abuse, with her department working closely with law enforcement agencies.

Xingwana was satisfied with the police's reintroduction of the family violence, child protection and sexual offences units.

“Child murderers will have no place to hide as more and more of them will continue to face the full might of the law,” she said.

On Wednesday morning, schoolgirl Louise de Waal was kidnapped at gun-point as she walked to school in Roodepoort, Gauteng.

A badly burnt body -- widely believed to be De Waal's -- was found on a farm in Magaliesburg later in the day.

Last Friday, a three-year-old boy's butchered body was found stuffed into a suitcase in his next-door neighbour's house at Gugulethu in the Western Cape. Just over a month ago, two sisters, 8 and 12, were stabbed in Khayelitsha, also in the Western Cape. The younger girl died from her injuries. Police said they could not rule out the possibility that the girls had been raped.

Xingwana appealed to the public to work with the police to ensure child abusers were rooted out of society.