The Democratic Alliance has lodged a formal complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission over what it describes as catastrophic failures by government departments to report and prosecute statutory rape cases involving children.
The DA Gender-Based Violence Task Team filed the complaint today, Friday 12 June, presenting a dossier documenting systemic breakdowns across multiple state institutions responsible for protecting vulnerable children from sexual violence.
Under South African law, when a girl under 16 becomes pregnant, it constitutes evidence of statutory rape. Healthcare workers, teachers and social workers are legally required to report suspected sexual abuse immediately through the Children’s Act (form 22) and criminal law procedures.
However, the DA’s countrywide investigation has revealed widespread failure to complete and submit these mandatory reports, resulting in minimal criminal investigations and prosecutions.
The statistics presented in the complaint are concerning. During the 2023/24 financial year, 122 302 adolescents gave birth in South Africa, including 2 716 children between the ages of 10 and 14. In the first six months of 2025 alone, 798 deliveries and 279 terminations were recorded for girls aged 10 to 14.
Despite these figures, police and social services are tracking only a small fraction of cases. In the Eastern Cape, 396 girls under 14 gave birth between April and September 2024, yet only 16 cases were reported to police.
The DA argues this institutional failure violates children’s constitutional rights to dignity and protection, allowing abusers to remain free, often living in the same households or neighbourhoods as their victims.
The party has petitioned the SAHRC to investigate the systemic failures across all responsible state departments, declare the ongoing neglect unconstitutional, order immediate implementation of a unified data-tracking framework across government departments, and enforce accountability mechanisms for officials who fail to act.
The complaint calls for urgent intervention to ensure compliance with existing child protection legislation and to address what the DA characterises as administrative failures that enable ongoing abuse.
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