Question NW450 to the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services

Reply:

1. (a) The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) does not keep crime statistics specifically for crimes committed by children or crimes against children. The NPA only collate diversion statistics with respect to offences committed by children in line with the Child Justice Act.

(b) The registrars or clerks of the court have submitted 2458 names to the Department of Social Development in terms of section 114 of the Children’s Act, 2005 (Act 38 of 2005) for placement onto Part A of the Child Protection Register (Form 25).

Year	Number of Form 25s submitted
2013/2014	70
2014/2015	330
2015/2016	453
2016/2017	412
2017/2018	424
2018/2019	411
2019/2020 to date	358
Total	2458

The Children’s Act, 2005 came into operation on 1 April 2010 expecting clerks of the court to forward the names of children in terms of section 114 of the Children’s Act, 2005 for placement onto Part A of the Child Protection Register (Form 25) to the Registrar of the National Child Protection Register. The Department of Social Development reported that this section was not fully implemented by the courts. The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development issued Circular 61of 2013 in 2013 to the courts to ensure compliance and to perform quality checks on the information submitted to the Registrar of the National Child Protection Register for placement on the Register. There may be instances where the numbers submitted by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to the Registrar differ from the numbers recorded on the Register and this is due to the fact that the Registrar receive information from various sources as provided for in section 114(1)(a) of the Children’s Act, 2005).

(2) The Registrars or clerks of the court have submitted 662 names to the Department of Social Development in terms of section 122 of the Children’s Act, 2005 (Act 38 of 2005) for placement onto Part B of the Child Protection Register (Form 28).

Year	Number of Form 28s submitted
2013/2014	44
2014/2015	69
2015/2016	59
2016/2017	67
2017/2018	145
2018/2019	135
2019/2020 to date	143
Total	662

There may be instances where the numbers submitted by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to the Registrar of the National Child Protection differ from the numbers recorded on the Register and this is due to the fact that the Registrar receive information from various sources, such as the South African Council of Educators (SACE) as provided for in section 120(1)(c) of the Children’s Act, 2005).

The Registrar of the National Child Protection Register reported in 2017/18 to the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development that some courts were submitting information on Forms 28 in instances where no finding was made in relation to unsuitability to work with children. The Department responded by conducting refresher training in 2018/19 on the submission of information to the Registrar of the National Child Protection Register in conjunction with the Registrar of the National Child Protection Register, the latter conducted the training. The training sessions were conducted as follows:

Province	Date
Western Cape	26 and 27 July 2018
Limpopo	7 August 2018
Gauteng	10 October and 13 August 2018
Eastern Cape	23 August 2018
Mpumalanga	21 August 2018
Northern Cape	23 October 2018
Free State	25 and 26 October 2018
North West	31 October 2018
KwaZulu-Natal	2017/2018