Video: MP Dereleen James finds children begging instead of attending school

Children begging in Goodwood became the focus of a public intervention by MP Dereleen James on Thursday, 15 October, after she visited Goodwood SAPS seeking help for minors reportedly spending school hours at nearby traffic lights, Cape {town} Etc reports.

In a video shared on X , James said she had encountered more than 12 children under the age of 13 and had taken needles from them. She approached the station to activate social crime prevention, involve social workers and contact the children’s parents.

According to James, she was told there were no vehicles available to fetch the minors. She also criticised the condition of the police vans at the station, alleging they were not roadworthy. ‘Who needs to work like this? You call this dignity?’ she asked while filming the vehicles.

We’ve normalised the abnormal.

This morning on Voortrekker Road & Jake’s Gerwel and Jake’s Gerwel and Frans Conradie in Goodwood— children as young as 8 standing at robots, washing windows, begging for R2, instead of sitting in a classroom. And SAPS drives past. Law Enforcement drives past. Social Development drives past. We all drive past.

These children are not “street kids” — they are OUR kids. At risk of drugs, gangs, rape, accident and we have accepted it as Cape Town life.

As a mother and grandmother, I will not accept it.

Can we prioritise:

1. Every child in a classroom — no negotiation.

Our Social Development and Law Enforcement will remove any child loitering at traffic lights during school hours and place them in a place of safety, not back on the street.

2. Parents will be held accountable.

In terms of the Children’s Act 38 of 2005, negligence and failure to ensure school attendance is a crime. We will open cases against parents/guardians whose children are found repeatedly begging at robots. Not to punish poverty — but to protect the child.

3. Fix the cause — 1-day support, not 1-year waiting list.

A well-run city is judged not by its audits, but by whether its children are in school at 8am or at robots at 8am.

Cape Town, we can do better. We must.

As for SAPS Goodwood, you deserve to be better resourced and I’ve escalated your concerns.

Genoeg nou!

— Dereleen James MP (@DereleenJ) October 14, 2026

James later accompanied police officers to intersections around Voortrekker Road, Jake’s Gerwel Drive and Frans Conradie Drive. She said the children had left by the time they returned, adding that she had escalated the resource concerns to the provincial commissioner.

In her accompanying post, James said children as young as eight were washing windows and begging for R2 instead of attending school.

‘These children are not “street kids”; they are OUR kids,’ s he wrote, calling for children to be taken to places of safety and for parents or guardians to be held accountable when children are repeatedly found begging at traffic lights.

James also called for stronger support for families, arguing that keeping children safe requires a coordinated response from policing and social development services. ‘We’ve normalised the abnormal,’ she said.

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