200 calls a month to Childline
LMOST 200 cases of child sexual abuse are reported to Childline KZN every month and the organisation says these numbers increase during the school holidays when children are often unsupervised at home.
While babies as young as 2 months old have been sexually abused, the highest number of reported cases to the provincial organisation is in the 10- to 15year age group, followed closely by those aged 7 to 9.
Vanespiri Pillay, director of Childline KZN, said the number of cases fluctuated every month. Most of the abuse occurred within their home environments or communities.
Pillay said most were perpetrated by family members and people known to the victim, such as community members, relatives or teachers.
AMimicking
“Substance abuse, poverty, unemployment, stress of daytoliving, access to pornography through social media, (sexual) experimentation and unsupervised children are some of the contributing factors.
“By poverty, I mean that we find many people sharing accommodation, children are exposed to sexual activities by adults and they start mimicking that behaviour among themselves. This has now led to an alarming trend of child-onchild sexual abuse.”
Successful prosecution rates of child rapists and abusers were low.
“Reasons could be inadequate investigation by the police, poor witness testimony or just the fear of actually reporting the abuse,” Pillay said.
On average, Childline KZN’s therapeutic department received 180 to 200 cases of sexual abuse each month.
Jackie Branfield, founder of Operation Bobbi Bear – which says the most common ages of victims are in the 4- to 7-yearold group – said children’s parents or caregivers often only realised they had been raped days afterwards. This was after they had noticed the child had symptoms of a sexually transmitted disease, or was seen walking or sitting awkwardly, or cringing around male company.
Bobbi Bear was also finding that youths from 15 years old were increasingly raping younger children.
“This is not new, but it has been escalating since 1994, when I started Bobbi Bear… The youth have no aspirations for the future, to study and make something of their lives, and with HIV-Aids decimating family structures, they are growing up with little or no supervision,” said Branfield.
However, the future was also bleak for the children who had been raped, Branfield said, as there was not enough support available to help them through their ordeals.
She added that since 1994, she had only come across one case in which the child was raped by a stranger. In all the others, the perpetrators were known from the community, or even a relative of the family – most commonly someone who was supporting the family financially.
On the positive side, though, she said small pockets of women in communities were beginning to stand up for the rights of their children.
Childline national executive officer Dumisile Nala said this week that the increasing trend of child rape was coupled with increasing levels of violence.
In KZN, counsellors at three Thuthuzela centres – headed by the National Prosecuting Authority – had seen 360 children raped between July and September, Nala said, adding that numbers could be higher as some children and families, especially those in rural areas, did not have access to resources to report such crimes.