It’s the smallest things that haunt us: a half-eaten packet of crisps, a sticky juice bottle lying discarded in a playground, or a mother’s whispered wailing in the quiet of a township evening. The final moments of a child should never be punctuated by pain, yet for twelve families across our country, that horror has become an irreversible reality.
How did we arrive at this point where buying a treat for a child can carry the weight of life or death? The answer lies in the failure of regulations and the broader neglect that defines our relationship with informal economies. Poverty, food insecurity, and inadequate oversight have combined to create a perfect storm, one where those who can afford the least are forced to gamble with their health every day.
Twelve children, their dreams left unfinished, their laughter stilled, gone after consuming what should have been a simple meal, bought from a trusted neighbourhood spaza shop.
Safe food options are scarce in these communities. The spaza is more than a store; it is a lifeline, a neighbour, a familiar face in a world of limited choices. But in the last month, that lifeline snapped, leaving behind only grief and anger.
Our children deserve better. They deserve neighbourhoods where buying a snack doesn’t carry the risk of a funeral. They deserve a government that doesn’t just react but addresses the root causes of why we are here.
Faced with this crisis, the ANC wants the government to shut down all spaza shops and “register them afresh” to ensure food safety. At first glance, this appears decisive, even protective. But let us not be fooled by the surface appeal of such measures. Shutting down these shops—many of which are run by immigrants, the marginalised, and those barely surviving—means pulling the rug out from under thousands of families who rely on them for their daily bread.
This proposal raises uncomfortable questions: Will closing and re-registering spaza shops truly address the problem, or will it further destabilise communities already grappling with unemployment and economic uncertainty? Can we afford to suffocate an informal sector that keeps millions afloat while not addressing the systemic inequalities that forced them into this precarious situation in the first place?
Consider the mother who tucks her child into bed at night, her heart heavy with worry, hoping tomorrow’s meal won’t be another game of Russian roulette. Reflect on the father who runs a spaza shop, desperate to make ends meet, now facing the possibility of losing everything. The real solutions require investment in food safety infrastructure, affordable access to healthy food, and meaningful oversight—not blanket measures that sweep the vulnerable into the margins.
As we bury the twelve, we must also bury the tendency to treat symptoms rather than the disease. Safety should never be a privilege; it should be a right. And until that right is guaranteed, we are all complicit in the tragedy of these unfinished childhoods.