An alarming increase in the number of unaccompanied minors in Louis Trichardt  is to receive high-level national and international attention.

More than 600 children from neighbouring countries moved through the town during the past year, according to statistics revealed during a special meeting held on 20 October in the Makhado Municipal Council Hall. An estimated 50 of these destitute children remained in Louis Trichardt. Some of them are sheltered by local NGOs. Others are living and working on the streets in order to survive.

It was decided at the meeting that a special local forum for role players providing services to unaccompanied children in Louis Trichardt should be established as a matter of extreme urgency to improve and co-ordinate appropriate local caregiving.

National, provincial and local representatives of the Department of  Social Development, the local SAPS Child Protection Unit, together with representatives of  the existing Musina forum, met with role players in Louis Trichardt  to discuss the need for providing care for the increasing number of unaccompanied minors moving across the Limpopo border, through Musina to Louis Trichardt.

Representatives of the two forums will co-operate closely to monitor and manage the situation. Appropriate shelter and developmental assistance (schooling and skills training) will receive further attention, along with general basic caregiving.

Amongst the NGOs represented in the Musina forum are Lawyers for Human Rights, The United Nations Human Rights Commission, the Jesuit Refugee Services, Save The Children (UK), The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the Red Cross.

In discussing possible assistance strategies, it was noted that children filtering through to the streets of Louis Trichardt represent various categories. Some cross the border to get groceries for their families and school money for themselves. Some come in search of a parent or a family member. Some come because they perceive that they have nobody and nothing left in Zimbabwe. All of these are seriously at risk and, for mere survival purposes, may seek shelter on exactly the potentially most dangerous fringes of society (taxi ranks, public toilets, commercial rubbish bins and back-alley hide-outs).

It was pointed out that some come straight through to Louis Trichardt to get away as far as possible from whatever drove them from their country. Some who initially came just to get croceries and money, come here after having been contaminated by the street subculture in Musina with which they initially linked up for survival purposes. In the meeting, it was agreed that co-ordinated professional intervention is necessary to avoid this contamination.

An eight-year-old boy, claiming to come from Harare in Zimbabwe, is among the latest arrivals of unaccompanied children in Louis Trichardt.