Nearly half of Eastern Cape rape victims are children

Almost half of the rapes reported in the Eastern Cape are of children.

This was revealed in a recent Stats SA report, “Child Series Volume III: Reported crime against children”, conducted in the 2022/2023 period, which showed that 45.9% of rapes reported to the police were of children.

The Eastern Cape has a high rate of crimes against children, ranking fourth in SA.

Limpopo recorded the highest proportion of rape cases against children at 54.3%, followed by Mpumalanga at 47.6% and KwaZulu-Natal at 46.2%.

Gauteng had the lowest proportion at 35.1%.

This alarming statistic does not account for unreported rapes.

Though there is a decrease from 51.6% in 2021/2022, the province is ranked fourth in reported crimes against children aged 0 to 17 years.

Other reported crimes are ranked below 20%. Assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) is 17.7%, up from 16.6% in 2021/2022.

Murder is 4.6%, up from 3%, and attempted murder is  2.7%, up from 1.8%, in the previous period.

Sexual assault decreased to 6.9% from 7.5%. Common assault, kidnapping and child abuse also increased by a point to 2%.

The statistics were sourced from the police.

Statistician-general Risenga Maluleke said in SA, crimes against children affected females the most, while common assaults affected both genders almost equally.

Boys were predominantly victims of assault with grievous bodily harm (GBH) 64.2% in 2022/2023, murder 72% in 2022/2023 and attempted murder 68.4% in 2022/2023.

Kidnapping and child abuse were crimes primarily committed against females.

Child rape, murder and attempted murder mostly occurred at night, while common assault, assault with grievous bodily harm, sexual assault and kidnapping typically happened in the afternoon, peaking in the early afternoon.

However, child abuse was most common in the early morning.

These alarming figures highlight a significant challenge for the country in terms of public safety and crime prevention.

A significant number of crimes against children in SA involve sexual offences, with girls being the victims more frequently than boys.

Nombini Sobekwa of the Paralegal Advice Centre, based in Lusikisiki and working closely with the St Elizabeth Thuthuzela Care Centre, agreed the figures represented what was happening on the ground.

Sobekwa said half of the survivors of gender-based violence and femicide coming into the centre were  children.

Lusikisiki is notorious as the rape capital of the province, only recently toppled to the second position in the recent quarterly crime statistics between April and June 2024.

Sobekwa said the number represented both rape and gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) cases, while 30% of those that used Thuthuzela Care Centres (TCC) were boys.

Masimanyane Women’s Rights International TCC co-ordinator Sibongile Vutu said more than half of the survivors seen at Cecilia Makiwane and Grey hospital centres were children. She said a low number of those were boys.

GBVF activist Lesley Ann Foster said a reduction by a tiny margin was not a victory.

“We are still failing children because they are still being raped and they are still having to face horrible experiences for the rest of their lives and be caught in the criminal justice system.

“This is just horrific. We can’t claim a victory when a child is still being raped anywhere.

“It’s an indictment on our society. We also have a big issue of child pregnancies and most of it is related to rape,” she said.

The Dispatch has reported extensively on rape cases of minors in different courts across the province.

Though testifying with the help of intermediaries, the children tell sordid stories of how they were violated either by their relatives, strangers or trusted community members.

Social worker Nomonde Stamper said the province was facing a crisis.

A  contributing factor was the stigma attached to sexual offences which went with feelings of shame that blocked victims from reporting as the stats reflected, she said.

“Mostly, the offences are committed by people they know and trust, threats are mostly involved, and where a perpetrator is a family member, the child does not get support or is not believed.

“At times, the member is the breadwinner. That decreases the chances of reporting.

“Children will take the blame if anything happens that can cause disruption within the family due to disclosure.

“Perpetrators know that and hence they target the children.

“Once the victims feel safe to tell without being judged and are supported by both the community and family, then we will get a true reflection of rape cases as they will be reported.

“Treatment of sexual offenders in correctional facilities must be taken seriously to prevent relapse and to create a safer society when they are reintegrated back to society.”

Children’s rights activist Petros Majola said while noting the decline, it was concerning that there were such statistics.

“We should be living in a country where we’re not talking about gender-based violence and femicide.

“What is more concerning is that there are cases that are not reported that families want to discuss among themselves, while we preach the gospel of reporting to law enforcement officers.

“We need to beef up the justice system including sexual offences courts, the forensic laboratories so that it takes a few days [to finalise cases].”

The head of advocacy for Women and Men Against Child Abuse, Luke Lamprecht, said: “What is interesting is that kidnapping, murder and attempted murder statistics, as opposed to rape, tend to be more accurate.

“[Because of reporting],  when people are murdered you have an accurate depiction of  statistics because there is a body associated with it and a postmortem, similarly with kidnappings and attempted murders,” he said.

Community safety department spokesperson Michael Msebi said to curb crime around GBVF and children, the department had instituted Court Watch Brief, a programme which focused on cases struck off the court roll.

Cases can be put back on the roll through vigorous scrutiny of those dockets to identity gaps and to send them back to detectives to close the gaps.

He said the department also had social crime prevention programmes across the province and police accountability programmes to harness relations between police and communities in the fight against crime.

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