The pulling of international financial aid destined for South African organisations supporting survivors of sexual assault has decimated the support network, with kids arguably the greatest casualty.
Amid the throttling of resources, a surge in child-abuse cases has been reported by the province’s Thuthuzela Care Centres (TCCs).
Run by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) with support from the SPAR Group, these centres offer care for victims of gender-based violence (GBV) through the provision of immediate medical care, trauma counselling and legal support.
Between January and November 2025, a combined 650 cases of sexually-abused children, many as young as nine years old, were reported to the TCCs at the Grey and Cecilia Makiwane hospitals in Buffalo City in the Eastern Cape.
Compounding the harrowing situation is that, in many cases, the attackers themselves fall into this age bracket.
Farida Myburgh, head of programmes at the Masimanyane Women’s Rights International non-profit organisation that relied heavily on USAID and other global funding, said rape among children was escalating rapidly.
“We are finding primary school boys who rape girls and other boys in the toilets at school,” she said, pointing out that the NGO has been battling the scourge for decades.
“When social workers work with individual victims, they discover they are one of many. They find that the perpetrator is only nine or 10 years old.
“Usually, they have been raped by a family member themselves.”
Cases involving the sexual assault of children are also rising in Nelson Mandela Bay.
According to Linda le Roux, the NPA’s representative at the TCC at Dora Nginza in Gqeberha, it is often affluent professionals perpetrating these crimes, obliterating the stereotype of it only occurring in poor communities.
“You are dumbstruck by what you see, but this is literally what’s happening,” Le Roux said.
“A lot of it is in influential homes. I’ve got families who are well off. I’ve got engineers who have been arrested.
“You constantly find yourself asking what is wrong with these people; it’s like there is this sexual hype out there.”
An NGO like Masimanyane, which renders services to the TCCs and others, have been gutted by the withdrawal of USAID and other funding last year.
This has seriously curtailed its ability to offer vital psychological support to attack survivors at such facilities.
Donations like the R75 000 SPAR EC presented to Masimanyane from the proceeds of its annual Charity Golf Day pales in comparison to the R11-million the non-profit lost overnight.
This, unfortunately, has led to retrenchments.
The organisation has been forced to lay off 13 staffers of the Dreams (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, Aids-Free, Mentored, and Safe) project, an initiative designed to reduce HIV infection among adolescent girls and young women.
Twenty-six more Masimanyane employees lost their jobs at the Buffalo City TCCs and other projects as a result of recent discontinued funding, including from a German backer following suit.
“The funding space is shrinking dramatically. You’ve got so many organisations closing their doors,” Myburgh said.
The NPO, which has been offering trauma counselling at the Dora Nginza TCC, has been forced to withdraw its services due to a lack of funding.
If there was a silver lining, Le Roux said, it was that more people were reporting these crimes than before as a result of campaigns such as Stop GBV.
“We can see the influence of public awareness now. We get more cases referred to us by doctors and teachers,” she said.
“People are noticing unusual behaviour in children and understanding their duty to report. We often find that we can prosecute these cases.”
Though this is a very positive outcome, Le Roux urged that even more needed to be done to expose these predators.
“They look like normal people, normal families, but they are not.”
