West Cape News

Increasingly younger children are being raped and sexually abused, and in many instances it is their fellow children who are committing these violent crimes, say councillors dealing with rape victims.

Over the past few months, disturbing reports of young boys who have been accused of raping or touching girls inappropriately at their schools have caused outrage.

In February, City Press reported that a seven-year-old girl was allegedly raped repeatedly in school toilets by boys aged nine and 11.

According to the report, the Grade 1 girl was raped by three boys almost every day during the first two weeks of term at the Nyanga school she attended.

Psychologists say the boys were likely to have been acting out scenarios they had witnessed, as a way of making sense of them.

But this was not an isolated case, said Cheryl Morilly, coordinator of the Childline office in Wynberg.

Morilly said they are seeing an increase in child offenders – most of whom are the victims of sexual abuse themselves.

She claimed that a lack of counselling after experiencing such a trauma often led to victims perpetrating abuse on someone else.

Morilly said exposure to pornography and the development of the child’s sexuality could also be contributing factors.

According to the latest crime statistics, those for 2008/2009, 71, 500 sexual offences were reported around the country between April 2008 and March 2009, showing an increase of 7, 682 from the previous year of 63, 818.

Safeline social worker and coordinator Anabella Job said the volume of their workload had increased over the past two years, especially since they receive referrals from schools, police and hospitals.

Morilly said it was very common to have to deal with rape victims between the age of 9 and 12, and also had cases involving younger children.

At the Rape Crisis centre in Athlone alone, there were 78 female adolescent cases out of 174 clients in 2009 compared to 47 cases out of 123 in 2008, said Rape Crisis Director Kathleen Dey.

Perpetrators often prefer very young children because they are unable to verbally convey what happened to them and abusers may start grooming victims as young as five and six years old, Job said.

“Although they have a high level of emotional intensity compared to their older counterparts, they have a lower ability to articulate and express themselves which makes healing more difficult for them,” said Dey.

In addition, Dey said it appears that escalating drug abuse is resulting in a higher level of brutality and violence during attacks.

Perpetrators may even force victims to use drugs.

“They behave like they are freaking out when assaulting the victim physically. One perpetrator behaved like an animal, biting his victim,” she said. – Yugendree Naidoo, West Cape News