Children continue to die amid rife gangsterism in the Western Cape. While the list of young victims grows, children increasingly are the ones pulling the trigger.

"Before I became a member [of the legislature], I was a mother - and as a parent, I stood confronted with a painful truth: our children are being lost, stolen by gangs, by drugs and by despair," said DA deputy chief whip Wendy Kaizer-Philander on Thursday, 13 November.

Her words echoed through the Western Cape Legislature as she tabled a motion on the brutal killings of children and also their grooming into becoming gangsters, a debate that soon spiralled into heated exchanges and political finger-pointing.

The motion demanded urgent, lasting reforms to confront the conditions turning children into victims and perpetrators - a crisis that is claiming young lives and turning Western Cape communities into battlegrounds.

Places once considered safe are no longer secure: children cannot walk to school or play in a park, and even a parent taking a stroll to church or the nearest shop does so in the shadow of violence.

Kaizer-Philander continued, "As a citizen, I stand here confronted with another painful truth. Our beloved South Africa is being betrayed...