The Landless People's Movement (LPM) has become the latest political formation to speak out against the ongoing wave of violence against children in Namibia, issuing a statement. The LPM Youth Command Element has called for urgent action to end what it describes as a national emergency.

The statement follows the brutal rape and murder of five-year-old Ingrid Maasdorp in Okahandja — a case that has gripped the nation with horror.

Referencing other unresolved murders, such as the disappearance of Spencer Nakale at Lüderitz and the death of one-year-old Simone Rooi, LPM leaders argue that these are not isolated events but symptoms of a deeper institutional failure.

“These gruesome cases underscore a harrowing reality: systems tasked with protecting the most vulnerable are either too slow, too weak, or too indifferent,” the statement reads.

The LPM argues that justice in Namibia is often unequal and sluggish. “When families cry out, when communities plead for police action, and those cries are met with silence or bureaucracy, we have arrived at a dangerous place of state neglect,” the statement warns.

Calling it a crisis of institutional performance and not just crime, the LPM is urging an overhaul of the Namibian Police Force — calling for better training, increased capacity, and a more professional and sensitive approach to child-related crimes.

“The days of routine negligence must come to an end,” said the party, adding that reactive justice is no longer sufficient.

The Youth Command Element invokes the memory of victims like Ingrid Maasdorp and Simone Rooi as a moral summons to action.