85 children missing over festive season

Eighty-five children have been reported missing over since the beginning of the festive season, according to a media report on Saturday.

There was a slight increase to the number of children reported missing for the month of December, Lt-Col Stephanus van Deventer told the Saturday Star.

However, he added that the number of children missing this year was lower than in the previous.

Van Deventer is the section commander for the SA Police Services bureau for missing children.

He said that more than a thousand children had been reported missing over the past year, about 60 percent of them were girls.

Twelve children were also abducted last year.

"We must keep in mind that some of these abductions were family abductions which means that the child was taken by a non-custodial parent after a divorce," van Deventer said.