ANZIO JACOBS, TRISH BARE & ALUTA SNEKE | South Africa’s children are under siege — and it’s all our baby now

As the country commemorates National Child Protection Week from May 29 to June 5 to raise awareness about the rights of children, we are once again reminded that this moment of reflection is not symbolic. It is urgent.

The latest crime statistics from the South African Police Servicefor the third quarter of the 2024/25 financial year (October to December 2024) reveal a distressing escalation of violence against children. During this period, 273 children were murdered, 480 were victims of attempted murder, and 2,164 suffered assaults with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm. These figures are not mere numbers; they represent young lives lost or irrevocably damaged. They signify a society failing its most vulnerable members.

These figures are not abstractions. They are children with names, birthdays, families and futures that will never be realised. They are the silent dead in a country that is becoming disturbingly accustomed to the normalisation of violence.

A nation desensitised, a system in decay

The high rates of violence against children are not isolated incidents. They are the logical outcome of a deeply unequal society with weakened protective systems and an eroded social contract. Despite a progressive legal framework — the Children’s Act, the Sexual Offences Act, the Child Justice Act — enforcement continues to falter. A recent report by our long-standing partner, the Teddy Bear Foundation, found that of more than 5,000 reported child abuse cases from 2019 to 2024, only 4% resulted in convictions. Four per cent! The rest were withdrawn, many due to lack of evidence or absence of witnesses; this is a telling sign of a justice system ill-equipped to protect those most in need of its care.

This failure is not technical. It is structural. It reveals a system where the burden to speak, to testify, to prove harm, still rests on traumatised children, often without access to support or protection. What we are seeing is not a justice system working poorly, but a justice system not working at all for children. The statistics are numbing. But the stories behind them are searing. We remember Uyinene Mrwetyana, murdered in 2019 — a case that galvanised a national reckoning and ignited the #AmINext movement. Her murder should have been the turning point. Instead, it has joined a litany of tragedies still unfolding.

Recently, we’ve read about the rape of a 7-year-old girl at her school in the Eastern Cape — a space that should be safe. We’ve heard of siblings killed in KwaZulu-Natal in a domestic violence incident. We’ve heard of boys groomed and assaulted by those they trusted — their coaches, neighbours and faith leaders. These stories form a mosaic of crises.

They also reveal an uncomfortable truth: violence against children in South Africa happens in homes, classrooms, playgrounds, churches, taxis, and yes, in police stations. The very spaces meant to protect have become sites of harm. And for many children, especially those in poor and marginalised communities, there is simply nowhere to run. Four days ago, SAPS released January 2025 to March 2025 statistics and lay this bare: six children were raped in day care centres, 48 rape cases were recorded in schools, and another six occurred in special schools. In the same period, six children were murdered in educational settings. These numbers are a harrowing reminder that South Africa is failing its children in places where they should feel safest.

The scourge of violence and the absence of state capacity

President Cyril Ramaphosa recently acknowledged South Africa’s violence crisis during a meeting in Washington. It is rare to see a South African president speak openly about the extent of the problem on a global stage. But words must be followed by co-ordinated, well-resourced action.

Right now, state systems are buckling. Police visibility is erratic. Investigations are delayed. Mental health services, particularly in rural and low-income areas, are nearly non-existent. Civil society is overstretched, and social workers are drowning.

The issue here is not just criminality. It is mental health. It is historical trauma. It is chronic poverty. It is gendered inequality. And it is the social breakdown. In many places, violence is becoming ordinary, and that should chill us all.

Children are not just growing up in violent communities; they are being raised by and within trauma. The impact on their development is catastrophic: from interrupted schooling to substance use, chronic anxiety and intergenerational cycles of harm. If we do not intervene with urgency and care, the costs — human and economic — will be devastating.

NMCF’s position: an integrated, locally rooted response

As the Nelson Mandela Children’s, we have never accepted that violence against children is inevitable. For nearly 30 years, we have worked in partnership with communities, community-based organisations and frontline organisations to challenge it, not just through services, but through shifting systems.

We do not parachute in and out. We work with. We listen. And we prioritise children in under-resourced, hard-to-reach areas who are most impacted by systemic violence.

Our life cycle approach begins in early childhood, carries through to adolescence, and extends into youth economic empowerment and family strengthening. Our teams and partners create safe spaces, provide psychosocial support, train child advocates, and lobby for structural change.

And yet even with this work, we cannot hold the line alone. Community work cannot succeed in the face of non-responsive policing, chronic state failure and persistent impunity. Our work is not just made harder by institutional collapse, it is often actively undermined by it.

This is not solely a government problem

We must be clear. The crisis of violence against children is not the responsibility of the department of social development alone. Nor is it the sole remit of non-profits and NGOs. It is not a matter for parents or for schools or for faith-based communities in isolation. It is everyone’s responsibility. Child protection is a collective endeavour. And child harm is a collective failure.

In light of this, the Fund joins others in calling for a national, cross-sectoral response, anchored in the following priorities:

1. Strengthen the justice system: Adequately resource SAPS and the judiciary to prioritise child protection. Specialised units, trauma-informed prosecutors, and fast-tracked cases are not luxuries — they are essentials.
2. Invest in mental health services: Violence and trauma are destroying the wellbeing of a generation. A national child mental health strategy — adequately funded, professionally staffed and community-embedded — must be an urgent policy.
3. Rebuild community infrastructure: CBOs, youth centres and after-school programmes are frontline protection services. Their funding must be ring-fenced and sustained. Civil society cannot continue to subsidise the state’s abdication.
4. Enforce existing laws: South Africa does not lack policy. It lacks will and resourcing. Child protection plans must be tied to budgets. Performance indicators must be published and accountability must be enforced.
5. Build a national culture of care: Awareness weeks are important. But they cannot be the sum of our efforts. We need year-round campaigns, in every language, every province and every classroom, to change how children are seen, valued and protected.

We must stop being shocked. We must stop being surprised and we must stop leaving it to someone else.

Children should not have to die for their lives to be seen as meaningful. They should not have to scream to be heard. And they should not have to survive state neglect to thrive.

Let us be clear — this crisis does not discriminate. It cuts across provinces, income brackets, and racial and religious lines. All of us are implicated. And all of us are responsible. Nelson Mandela once said: “There can be no keener revelation of a nation’s soul than how it treats its children.” Ours is on display.

Let this not be another Child Protection Week of speeches and symbolism. Let it be a turning point. The time to act is not tomorrow. It is today.

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