“When a two-year-old is stabbed 15 times and a one-year-old is raped, something is fundamentally broken in how this country protects its children,” said Kaylynn Palm, Head of the Action Society Action Centre in the Western Cape. “These are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of a justice system that continues to fail children at the most basic level.”
Action Society has condemned two brutal attacks on infants that have shaken the country and once again laid bare South Africa’s failure to protect its children.
In the Eastern Cape, a two-year-old girl is fighting for her life after being stabbed 15 times, allegedly by her babysitter, in Jeffrey’s Bay on New Year’s Eve. The child sustained severe injuries to her head, face, back, chest and hands and was found lying in a pool of blood. Despite the extreme nature of the attack, the accused currently faces charges of child neglect and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Action Society is calling for the immediate amendment of the charges to attempted murder.
“Action Society warns that cases involving extreme violence against children are too often treated as ordinary assault matters, despite injuries that are clearly life-threatening,” Palm said. “A two-year-old stabbed 15 times is not the victim of an ordinary assault. It is a case of attempted murder, and the charge must reflect that reality.”
In a separate case in Johannesburg, a one-year-old baby girl remains in hospital after allegedly being raped by her own grandfather. The accused has appeared in court on charges of rape and attempted murder. Both cases involve children harmed by people entrusted with their care, highlighting a deeply entrenched and dangerous pattern.
“These are not random crimes committed by strangers,” Palm said. “They are acts of extreme violence committed by people known to the child. That is one of the most disturbing and consistent findings in our research.”
Action Society’s latest report, The Crisis of Crime Against Children in South Africa, draws on Statistics South Africa and SAPS data and paints a devastating picture of violence against minors:
- 17 118 children were raped in a single year, with rape accounting for 38.3 % of all recorded crimes against children.
- The child rape rate stands at 87 per 100 000, consistently higher than the rape rate for the general population.
- Nearly one in five child rape victims is under the age of 10.
- South Africa records between 700 and 1 000 child murders every year, with the child murder rate remaining stubbornly high at between 4 and 6 per 100 000 for nearly a decade.
The report further shows that in more than two-thirds of child murder cases, the perpetrator is known to the child, including parents, relatives, caregivers, neighbours or other trusted figures. Many of these murders involve knives or blunt instruments and occur after escalating violence, highlighting the danger of failing to act decisively when a child’s life is clearly at risk.
“This is precisely the stage at which charges must be carefully reviewed and, where necessary, amended to reflect the full gravity of the violence inflicted on a child,” Palm said. “Ensuring that charges accurately reflect the seriousness of the conduct is essential to maintaining public trust, protecting victims and their families from further trauma, and affirming that violence against children will be met with the full force of the law.”
Action Society warns that undercharging, investigative delays and forensic backlogs continue to undermine justice for child victims. The organisation reiterates its call for decisive legal action, trauma-informed policing, and urgent reform of the criminal justice system to ensure that crimes against children are treated with the seriousness they demand.
“These children survived unspeakable violence,” Palm said. “Whether they survive the justice system depends on whether the State is willing to act with urgency, courage and accountability.”
Download the full report here.
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