A 37-year-old woman from Tafelsig, Mitchell’s Plain, is expected to appear in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court today in connection with the kidnapping of a newborn baby at the Middestad Mall in Bellville at the weekend.
The suspect allegedly lured the mother, 25-year-old Imaan Sharmar, to the mall for a workshop on support for young mothers.
Sharmar told SABC News that en route to the mall, the suspect gave her a cold drink that could have been spiked. She says that when they were at the mall, she felt nauseous and went to the bathroom, leaving her baby with the suspect.
The suspect allegedly made off with the baby using an e-hailing service. The infant was found two days later and returned to his mother.
Director for children’s rights group Molo Songololo, Patric Solomons, says that with kidnapping cases generally and this one in particular, there appear to be elements of human trafficking.
“The big question is, why do people take babies, especially those babies. We have had cases already in the past who took a baby because she lost her baby, but never told anybody that she had a miscarriage, and she had no idea how she’s going to tell her husband. The baby was a way of keeping the husband. Cementing whatever needed cementing in the family. We have also had a case where the grandmother took a baby to give to her daughter so that the marriage could be saved, for example, and then there have been a number of cases where people take babies because they can’t have babies.”
