Wednesday, 05 November 2025

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) welcomes the multi-stakeholder engagements and public hearings convened by the Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities from the 31st of October to the 4th of November 2025 in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape. These engagements form part of the public participation process that followed an EFF motion tabled in Parliament on the 27th of August 2024, which called for decisive national action to address the growing crisis of statutory rape in South Africa.

The EFF’s motion recognised the horrifying reality that thousands of young girls across the country are being forced into premature motherhood and adulthood as a result of sexual violence. It raised concern that many of these victims do not even realise that they are being violated.

The motion also highlighted the ineffective oversight by departments responsible for child protection and called for a coordinated response from the portfolio committees on Social Development, Education, Health, Justice, and Police. These committees were mandated to conduct a joint public participation process, review current legislation, propose amendments to strengthen mandatory reporting laws, and report back to Parliament by March 2025.

This initiative was born out of the EFF’s recognition that South Africa is facing a national emergency. Between April 2020 and March 2023, approximately 11,500 babies were born to girls aged between 10 and 14 across the country. Each of these cases represents an incident of statutory rape under the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007, which makes it a criminal offence for any person to engage in a sexual act with a child under the age of 16, regardless of consent.

In the eThekwini District, between April 2024 and April 2025, there were 7,627 recorded teenage pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 19, including 154 births to girls between the ages of 10 and 14. In the Eastern Cape, the crisis is even more alarming, with 117 girls aged 10 to 14 giving birth between April and July 2025, and an additional 4,752 births among girls aged 15 to 19 in the same period.

These shocking statistics expose a total collapse in the systems meant to protect children from statutory rape. The EFF holds the Departments of Basic Education, Health, and Social Development fully responsible for this dereliction of duty. The law states clearly under Section 54 of the Sexual Offences and Related Matters Amendment Act that any individual who has knowledge of the sexual abuse of a child is legally obligated to report it to the South African Police Service.

The failure to report such crimes constitutes a criminal offence. Yet, the repeated pattern of pregnancies among girls under 16 years old proves that these mandatory reporting laws are being ignored and that the responsible departments are failing to enforce them. These departments have dismally failed to protect the innocent children of this country.

It must be made clear, a child pregnancy is not a social issue, it is evidence of statutory rape. Just as hospitals are mandated to report gunshot wounds to law enforcement, so too must they report every instance of a child pregnancy, because it represents a clear and prosecutable act of rape.

Furthermore, Section 28 of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa guarantees every child the right to be protected from maltreatment, neglect, abuse, or degradation. It also affirms that a child’s best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning them. Yet, the very institutions mandated to uphold these rights are the ones failing our children.

The Departments of Health, Basic Education, and Social Development have failed to create legally mandated reporting system for statutory rape, particularly when it results in child pregnancy. This failure directly enables predators to continue raping children. These institutions are not only failing to protect children from rapists, they are perpetuating it through its deliberate negligence.

We also need to recognise that many children are not only failed by the state but also by their parents, some of whom are the perpetrators themselves. This makes it even more critical for the state’s protection systems to function independently, transparently, and proactively.

In the absence of families protecting their own children from rapists and in cases where parents themselves are the perpetrators it becomes the state’s immediate responsibility to act. The state must ensure that these minors access state services that advance the development, safety, and well-being of the child. The state, therefore, has both the opportunity and the constitutional obligation to identify, report, and intervene in every instance of statutory rape.

Provincial departments have also failed to establish automated and confidential reporting systems that would allow individuals to report statutory rape safely and without fear of intimidation. Many hospitals and clinics also lack dedicated statutory rape or sexual offences units, with poor coordination between the SAPS and the Departments of Social Development and Health.

We call upon the government to employ social workers urgently in all schools and health facilities, as many qualified professionals are currently at home without work. The state must establish stronger ties with civil society organisations, whose role should extend beyond numerical reporting. The Department of Education must also actively ensure that schools comply with child protection policies, as teachers and other officials have, in some cases, been the perpetrators of these heinous crimes.

The backlog in processing DNA samples must be urgently addressed to ensure that cases of child victims, whether they terminate pregnancies or carry to full term are properly investigated and prosecuted. There is also a critical need to increase the number of safe homes for children in vulnerable domestic environments, especially where abuse occurs within families and parents fail to protect their own children.

We also call upon community members to report child pregnancies to the SAPS. The police must be held accountable when they turn victims away for trivial or unlawful reasons. A child cannot consent to sexual activity, there is no such thing as consensual sex with a minor. Any claim to the contrary must never be used to justify refusing to open or pursue a case of statutory rape.

The EFF will not remain silent while our children are raped into motherhood and their innocence destroyed by a system that refuses to act. We will use Parliament as an instrument of accountability to ensure that these failing institutions face the consequences of their negligence. We will fight for stronger laws to compel mandatory reporting and ensure strict penalties for those who fail in their duty to protect children.

We will also push for improved oversight mechanisms so that every case of statutory rape is recorded, reported, and prosecuted. It is a moral and constitutional duty for this country to protect its children from statutory rape. We will not rest until South Africa becomes a country that values and defends the dignity, safety, and future of every child.

The EFF will continue to use the power of Parliament and the voice of the people to ensure that the rape of children ends, and that justice prevails for the most vulnerable among us.

ISSUED BY ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS

Sinawo Thambo (National Spokesperson) 072 629 7422

Thembi Msane (National Spokesperson) 061 467 8169

Andiswa Madikazi (Parliament Media Liason) 069 516 4924

Thato Lebyane (Media Inquiries) 078 563 1581