Question NW57 to the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services
21 February 2018 - NW57
De Freitas, Mr MS to ask the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services
(a) What is the total number of cases of (i) child abuse and (ii) child murder that have been recorded in each province and (b) of those cases, how many have led to successful convictions in each province in the past three financial years?
Reply:
a) (i) and (ii) The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has informed me that the NPA only records conviction rates of verdict cases on all murder prosecutions, and a further breakdown according to the types of murder as well as child abuse, is not available. NPA is therefore not able to provide the information in the detail requested.
I have further been informed that the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development`s (DoJ&CD) Integrated Case Management System (ICMS) does not at present, provide for victims details yet, and therefore the Department would not be able to specify if a criminal charge of murder is linked to a victim such as a child. Efforts are however in place to address this gap. Thus far, a data collection tool for the details of all crime victims, including children, has been drafted, and is now being taken through the stakeholder- consultation process.
The Department can therefore unfortunately not respond in respect to data on child murder charges but in the future the Department will be able to report on it from the Integrated Justice System (IJS) transversal system data.
The Honorable member is therefore advised to request this information from the South African Police Service, in terms of criminal matters.
In terms of Children’s Court-matters involving child abuse and neglect, data on matters relating to child abuse, was not collected previously (for the 2014/15 to 2016/17 financial year. With the roll-out of the Integrated Case Management System (ICMS) this year, the Department is able to provide mid-year statistics for 2017/18 as shown below.
Table 1: Types of cases registered
Province |
Deliberate Neglect |
Emotional |
Physical |
Sexual |
Not Indicated |
Grand Total |
Eastern Cape |
41 |
5 |
7 |
7 |
488 |
548 |
Free State |
48 |
8 |
9 |
1 |
424 |
490 |
Gauteng |
263 |
14 |
33 |
14 |
645 |
969 |
KwaZulu-Natal |
30 |
8 |
19 |
20 |
1 562 |
1 639 |
Limpopo |
26 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
229 |
260 |
Mpumalanga |
49 |
17 |
8 |
8 |
414 |
496 |
North West |
80 |
20 |
13 |
3 |
250 |
366 |
Northern Cape |
19 |
2 |
|
|
104 |
125 |
Western Cape |
140 |
41 |
10 |
9 |
473 |
673 |
Grand Total |
696 |
116 |
102 |
63 |
4 589 |
5 566 |
The table above depicts the types of cases that were registered from April to September 2017. Most of the cases registered were cases of deliberate negligence, and 82% of the types of abuse were not indicated.
Table 2: Types of abuse with respect to gender
Abuse type |
Female |
Male |
Transgender |
Grand Total |
Deliberate Negligence |
327 |
367 |
2 |
696 |
Emotional |
60 |
56 |
|
116 |
Physical |
54 |
48 |
|
102 |
Sexual |
58 |
5 |
|
63 |
Not Indicated |
2 257 |
2 330 |
2 |
4 589 |
Grand Total |
2 756 |
2 806 |
4 |
5 566 |
Table 2 above shows that from April to September 2017, 53% of male children were neglected deliberately. The table further shows that out of all sexual assault cases reported, more than 90% involved female children.
Table 3: Types of abuse with respect to age
Abuse type |
0 - 5 |
6 - 10 |
11 - 15 |
16 to under 18 |
Not Indicated |
Grand Total |
Deliberate Negligence |
307 |
171 |
97 |
19 |
102 |
696 |
Emotional |
34 |
26 |
32 |
13 |
11 |
116 |
Physical |
20 |
25 |
38 |
10 |
9 |
102 |
Sexual |
7 |
20 |
25 |
7 |
4 |
63 |
Not Indicated |
966 |
1 138 |
1 523 |
755 |
207 |
4 589 |
Grand Total |
1 334 |
1 380 |
1 715 |
804 |
333 |
5 566 |
The table above shows that 31% of the children that were reported to being abused are between the ages of 11 and 15. 6% of the children’s age was not indicated and more than 80% of the abuse type was not indicated.
Table 4: Types of abuse with respect to population group
Abuse type |
African |
Asian |
Coloured |
Indian |
Other |
White |
Not Indicated |
Grand Total |
Deliberate Negligence |
129 |
2 |
70 |
8 |
1 |
20 |
466 |
696 |
Emotional |
25 |
|
6 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
79 |
116 |
Physical |
33 |
|
5 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
54 |
102 |
Sexual |
21 |
|
5 |
3 |
|
1 |
33 |
63 |
Not Indicated |
1 008 |
3 |
97 |
13 |
1 |
75 |
3 392 |
4589 |
Grand Total |
1 216 |
5 |
183 |
28 |
6 |
104 |
4 024 |
5566 |
The table above highlights the prevalence of abuse cases reported involving children from April to September 2017 to be African compared to other races.