Missing kids found via Facebook

2008-06-20 12:05

Verashni Pillay

Cape Town - An organisation that finds missing children has found a new weapon in their war against child abductions: Facebook.

Three missing children have been spotted and found since Missing Children SA launched a group on popular social networking site, Facebook, at the beginning of the year.

On Thursday 14-year-old Rodwin Van der Westhuizen, who disappeared from Grassy Park, was found just a day after a poster went up on the group's page thanks to Linzi Thomas.

Thomas, one of the groups 1 118 members, received a message from the group's founder, Pieter Boshoff, on Thursday morning and immediately recognised the boy from street children programmes she was involved in.

"He was living on the streets," she said of Van der Westhuizen, who ran away from his home in Grassy Park.

The boy was taken to the police and reunited with his parents on Thursday.

"This was the third child that was found because of the Facebook group," said Boshoff, who has helped find over 200 children since the inception of Missing Children SA in February 2007.

Boshoff noted there were many groups on Facebook who purported to help children, none of which was really effective.

"This group really makes a difference," he said. "As the group grows bigger the chance of finding more kids will also grow."

The site, which allows millions of users worldwide to post personal profiles and form special interest groups, had about 734 000 South African members as of February 2008.

Click here to visit the Facebook group.
Note: You must be a member of Facegroup to see the group.

- News24