Across the country, the same haunting pair of green eyes has captured our collective imagination well beyond the screens on which they are displayed. These are the eyes of a lost child. These are the eyes of Joshlin Smith.

Much like the rest of the nation, I have been in a state of horror as, with the passing of time since the six-year-old’s disappearance in February, the complications of this case have become twisted into the likes of a cautionary Grimmian tale as Joshlin’s own mother, along with other people, stand accused of kidnapping and trafficking her daughter; ultimately allegedly selling her body for muti.

This case reminds me of a theory by Viviana Zelizer about the value of children which states that from the mid-19th century until the 1930s, the status of the child dramatically metamorphosed from them being the commercially valuable chattel of their parents, into beings of economic “worthlessness” but emotional “pricelessness”.

This quote seems to suggest that the commodification of the child came to an abrupt end just over a generation ago, but Joshlin’s case shows this is not so, as but one horrifying example of the commodification of children taken to its gruesome extreme.

The commodification of children, and the treatment of them as the “property” of their parents, has ancient roots which expanded into most pre-industrial societies. Even as rights slowly grew for adults from the commencement of the modern period onwards, the tradition of perceiving children as chattel continued. This is seen well into the foundation of colonial America in the early 17th century, for example when the Virginia Company forcefully took approximately 100 of London’s homeless children to the Virginia Colony to be apprentices, as then children were viewed as significant potential economic producers. The Privy Council also granted the Virginia Company the right that:

“[…] if any of them shall be found obstinate to resist or otherwise to disobey such directions as shall be given in this behalf, we do likewise hereby authorize such as shall have the charge of this service to imprison, punish, and dispose any of those children.”

At the same time, English Common Law dictated that the father had the right to the “association and services” of all his legitimate children. This means that he was automatically entitled to physical custody over his children, the fruits of their labour, as well as their perceived future value.

Therefore, a disgruntled father could bring third parties before the court if they had wrongfully seduced his daughter outside of wedlock, and therefore had decreased her future marital worth; or a third party in their capacity as an employer could be sued for the future earnings of the child if they had enticed any of them to leave their childhood home in search of alternative employment.

Possibly the worst example, however, of the treatment of the child as a res (i.e. a thing which can be held as property) is that of the famous case of Mary Ellen Wilson. In late 19th century New York, a successful attempt to rescue Mary Ellen from the abusive mistreatment of her foster parents was made by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

This act was born from a contorted perception of Darwinian thought which viewed children as one of the “little animals” who had the same social currency as other beasts such as pigs, horses and cattle. It was only after this incident that the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was founded.

To me, this instance is redolent of the quote by the author and doctor Janusz Korczak who wrote in the early 20th century that: “Motherhood enables the woman if she is capable of sacrifice and self-denial; is demoralising if under the guise of caring about the well-being of the child, she makes him a prey of her ambitions, likes and addictions… My child is my property, my slave, my little pet dog”.)

To the modern eye, these examples may be shocking, but they naturally force us to pose the question of “are we any better?”

Read more in Daily Maverick: Cruelty to children — what are we doing to our kids?

Indeed, we have a plethora of protective legal mechanisms, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but the answer to the question must be a resounding “No.” One need only look to the statistics on child trafficking offered by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to see this.

For example, the IOM estimates that not only is a child four times more likely to be trafficked than an adult; but a staggering 41% of these children will have been trafficked by a close family member or relative.

One such alarming instance occurred in 2020 when Yamnkela Nkote was charged with selling her newborn child, telling the traumatised father that the baby had died. This raises the spectre of what may have happened to Joshlin.

The perpetrators of these crimes may also be close members of the child’s community, as seen in the case last year where three elderly members of a community in Mbizana were charged with child trafficking after they trafficked a mentally disabled 13-year-old girl who was raped and forced into marriage.

These examples of the commodification of the child undoubtedly vary in their degree of seriousness, but they are united by the same attitude towards children which regards them as objects, less than fully human.

Our laws may be excellent, but they are not enough. The real problem lies within ourselves and the way we think about children. Children are not the means to adult ends, nor can their innate worth be translated into human-made currency.

Joshlin’s case is extreme, but the same archaic, even subconscious attitude of regarding children as our property is deeply ingrained in our society, even if we don’t fully recognise or accept this within our own thought patterns.

We must therefore ask ourselves: how do we respond to the challenge of fully realising children’s rights? How will we give them the opportunity to flourish in physical and psychological safety as the emotionally priceless human beings that they deserve to be? DM