What was often missing from public debate, he said, was that children caught up in crime were often victims as well as perpetrators. “There are two dimensions to those children. That complicates the handling of them. Many of them are victims of big criminals who exploit them,” he added. “They have gone through a lot, pressures, risk of death if they don’t do what they should do, they have been abused sometimes, there has been trauma.”
This went against the popular belief of who a victim could be, said Mwepu, which was usually “somebody who is well behaved and who has been attacked”.