Police report: Crimes against children on the rise

Dar es Salaam. Despite efforts by authorities to lower crime rate, reports show that crime against children is on the rise from 2016 to 2017.

The Dar es Salaam special zone commander, Mr Lazaro Mambosasa gave details of the report yesterday on the crime rates and traffic safety in his zone for 2017.

Although the rates of other crimes have dropped, abduction and dumping of children rates have risen by 29.4 per cent and 31.25 per cent respectively.

The number of children that were abducted in 2017 stands at 22 compared to 17 children in 2016 while 21 were dumped in 2017 compared to 16 in 2016.

Mr Mambosasa called upon parents to be careful especially during this festive season, adding that “disco toto” has been disallowed to minimise crimes against them.

“I have already given an order for parents not to take their children to any place where security is wanting. All entertainment places should also not host children for the famous Disco Toto,” he said.

The police force is working closely with citizens to ensure that the city is safe, he said.

Other cases such as criminal offences have dropped by 22.4 per cent from 12,555 cases reported last year to 9,736 this year and crimes have gone down by 2.6 per cent in the past year from 129,602 to 126,200.

Furthermore, Mambosasa sad in an effort to curb crimes he would like institutions and big businesses to install CCTV cameras and alarm systems to help the police in their attempt to make the city a crime free zone. “Organisations should work closely with the police by ensuring that they take safety measures by installing CCTV cameras to prevent the number of crime doers,” he said.