A veteran police officer in the field of electronic investigations has urged parents to monitor children’s online activities, as part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Violence on Women and Children.
“Monitor your children’s devices such as tablets and phones on a daily basis. Install parental software apps that will be able to block harmful content. Young children should not be in chat groups,” said Captain Bez Bezuidenhout.
“Daily monitoring will ensure more children are saved from such predators. These predators even lure children through online computer games, parents must be extra vigilant.”
Bezuidenhout forms part of the Serial and Electronic Investigations (SECI) Unit that has identified 27 active online child sexual predators in the country.
The first four have already been arrested in Gauteng and in KwaZulu-Natal in the past three weeks, according to SAPS.
With more than 28 years’ experience in solving GBVF related cases, Bezuidenhout advises parents to closely monitor their children’s devices.
The Serial and Electronic Investigations (SECI) is a unit within the SA Police Service (SAPS) that is responsible for tracing and arresting serial rapists as well as taking down those involved in the possession, distribution and creating of child pornography.
This comes as South Africa joined nations across the world in observing the international campaign. Internationally, the period is called the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.
It is an annual international campaign which kicks off on November 25 listed by the United Nations as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The campaign runs until December 10.
During this period, the SAPS has taken the opportunity to highlight the work of its detectives who, through their investigations seek to ensure justice for millions of gender-based violence survivors.
Bezuidenhout through his recent investigation secured the sentencing of an online child sexual predator.
In October, Bezuidenhout and his team from the SECI Free State successfully ensured that 36-year-old Mario Guisti.
Guisti was handed down 6,548 years in prison for rape, creation of child pornography, possessing and downloading child pornography, causing a child to be present in an act of self-masturbation and human trafficking.
A computer programmer by profession, Guisti had been befriending and targeting boys between the age of eight and 10 years-old “for the sole purpose of feeding his sexual desires” of creating child pornography and performing sexual acts on young boys.
The perpetrator was traced to Welkom and arrested by Bezuidenhout and his team in August 2022.
SAPS said the team of detectives had been following up on information that alerted police to an online user who had been uploading child sexual assault material.
Earlier this month, IOL reported that Guisti, 36, was found guilty on 1,010 charges for the rape of two boys, one charge of human trafficking, and 1,007 charges of the possession, creation, and distribution of child pornography.
At the time, Free State provincial police spokesperson, Captain Loraine Earle said Guisti was flagged by the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) for uploading child sexual assault material on the dark web.
“Captain Bez Bezuidenhout, from the Provincial Serial and Electronics Crime Investigation Unit, a specialised section within the Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offences (FCS) Unit, arrested the suspect,” Earle said at the time.
The investigating team, consisting of Captain Bezuidenhout, Captain Fanie van der Merwe from the Thabong FCS Unit, and Warrant Officer Pieter de Wahl from the Provincial Local Criminal Record Centre, worked tirelessly to analyse the information received from Interpol.
Last month, Bezuidenhout also led the conviction of a 60-year-old African man who cannot be identified to protect the identity of his 10-year-old niece whom he raped and performed sexual acts on.
“The man was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment after he was found guilty of creating child pornography with his 10-year-old niece, where he would instruct her on video what acts to do,” SAPS national spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said at the time.
“The video evidence led to the suspect (the 60-year-old man) pleading guilty.”
This year marks the 25th year since South Africa initiated the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children campaign.
It focuses on raising awareness of the devastating impact that gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) have on women and children, and on the social fabric of society.
Given the scourge of gender-based violence in the country, the government is implementing the Emergency Response Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, which was announced by President Cyril in September 2019.
IOL