Broken promises: how the system fails child victims

In a quiet conference room at the Teddy Bear Foundation, 20 parents sit in silence, their faces etched with grief. Some wipe away tears, others simply stare ahead, nodding in weary agreement as stories of justice delayed — and often denied — are shared. Different races, different backgrounds, but each parent in the room has one thing in common — a child who has been abused, and now those children face the added trauma of navigating the legal system. 

One mother’s relief is laced with sorrow — her daughter’s case has been struck off the roll. 

“In September 2023, my daughter came home from her father’s house, crying. She told me that her uncle had been molesting her since she was eight. As a mother, you know your child’s cry. That night, when she told me what happened, she let out a cry that I could feel. It cut through my heart.” 

Initially attributing her daughter’s withdrawn nature and academic decline to the grief of losing her grandfather, she later realised the truth was much darker. Her daughter, now 16, had spent weekends at her father’s house. He was a substance abuser, often too out of it to notice what was happening under his own roof. When the girl finally found the courage to speak, the battle for justice began.

The mother took her daughter to hospitals, shuffled between Joburg’s Helen Joseph and Rahima Moosa, before finally speaking to the police. The sergeant handling the case was kind, but the system was not. The suspect, her ex-husband’s brother, was arrested only after she pointed him out inside her former home. She shielded her daughter from that confrontation, but she couldn’t shield her from the months of court delays, endless postponements, and, ultimately, the moment when the case was dismissed. 

Holding back tears, the mother said: “I seem strong when I talk but I cry at night. I have dedicated time to cry, my kids sleep at 9pm so my time to cry is at 10pm. We’re in limbo with our case, we don’t have a court date. Because it’s been struck from the roll this restarts the whole process. When this started my daughter was in grade 9, she’s in grade 11 now. I don’t just have one child at home, I have five. This also affects my other children.”

 A forensic oversight meant that crucial evidence — her daughter’s pyjamas — was never collected. After several sessions of therapy, court preparation and being declared competent for court, the teenager suffered a severe emotional breakdown just before trial, and the case crumbled. The alleged perpetrator was arrested and later released on bail. In August 2024, the case was struck off the roll. 

Thinking back, the mother recalls how she no longer recognised her once playful daughter. The signs were there: the layers of clothing she wore, even in the heat; the scars on her wrists; the suicide attempts in grades 6 and 7. 

“My daughter has always been playful, laughing and full of life and light. But she started becoming depressed. There was a darkness around her. She was always tired and always sleeping. She went from being an A student, she was always getting awards at school, and then she failed four subjects in grade 8,” she said. 

They live in constant fear. The accused lives just two streets away from them. He threatened to kill her daughter if she ever spoke out. Now, the teenager is being homeschooled to avoid the trauma of passing the house on her way to school and back home. 

“A few years ago she was broken, so part of me is happy for the pause in the court process. It’s been two years, maybe in five months' time we’ll be ready to fight again. At the moment we don’t have justice but there’s healing,” the mother said. 

The problem still remains that there are still external factors ... where we have strong prosecutors that can address the court, and that can help secure a guilty verdict, but ultimately the child has to speak and the strength of the case lies, unfortunately, on how well the child testifies

—  Advocate Agnes Bezuidenhout

Across the room, a father listens, his pain just as raw. His daughter’s case dates back to 2022. She was 15 when her choirmaster lured her to his home under the pretence of extra singing lessons. Once there, he raped her. 

For nearly three years, this father has fought a lonely battle to navigate a legal system that offers little guidance and even less support. His daughter has already testified and she will return to court later this month. There is no certainty of a conviction. Only the endless waiting. 

At the far end of the table, another father sits in silence, absorbing each story as he grapples with his own. His son was 15 when it happened. An introverted child, he had struggled to find his place in high school, so his parents enrolled him in a private institution with small classes. It seemed like the perfect fit — until a new teacher arrived in the second term of grade 9. 

She started an extracurricular sports group, encouraged his son to join, and soon suggested extra training sessions. The teacher started sexually grooming the boy by sending him explicit pictures and videos, before taking the boy to her house where she sexually abused him. Later, other boys came forward, revealing she had also sent them inappropriate photos.

His son confided in the school principal, and an investigation was launched. The school suspended the teacher, opened an investigation and a criminal case against her. When his father opened a case, police requested that the teenager participate in the arrest. The father refused. Instead, he accompanied the police and used a video call where his son pointed out the teacher’s apartment, leading to her arrest. A week later, she was granted bail. And then came another blow: the charge listed was statutory rape. 

“We’ve since found out that the charge of statutory rape is not appropriate and it should be rape,” the father said. 

Experts at the Teddy Bear Foundation agree. In South Africa, statutory rape applies when an adult engages in consensual sexual intercourse with a minor under 16. In this case, the charge should have been rape.

The numbers tell their own story. From 2019 to 2024, the Teddy Bear Foundation has had 5,385 children go through their court preparation programme. Of those, 67% were female and 33% male. Nearly half of the cases — 46% — involve sexual abuse, with another 21% related to physical abuse.

Only 838 cases have been finalised. Of those, 514 were withdrawn, 230 resulted in convictions, and the rest remain unresolved. With a 4% conviction rate and only 15% of cases concluded, justice remains a distant dream for most victims. Many cases are struck from the roll due to a lack of evidence, prolonged delays, or the victim losing the will to continue. 

These families are not alone. Thousands of child abuse survivors in South Africa never see justice. For their parents, the fight isn’t just about convictions — it’s about healing, about giving their children the chance to reclaim their futures. But as long as justice remains an elusive promise, the scars of their trauma will never fully fade. 

For advocate Agnes Bezuidenhout, the acting chief prosecutor at the Johannesburg magistrate’s court, it’s not the case that there’s no justice for child victims. When we meet at the court, it’s raining, the corridors are eerily quiet and cold. There’s a power outage and most cases have been postponed. 

Bezuidenhout, who has been a prosecutor since 1999, sheds light on the complex and often heartbreaking challenges of handling sexual offences cases involving children.

“There are so many factors at play. I do not agree with the perception that cases are being postponed ... because after three or four postponements the magistrate will not grant another postponement. The prosecutor has to put that case down for trial or withdraw the charges. That is why I'm not very keen, where I see the child is not ready, to place that case on the roll ... and I can’t force a child to testify that doesn't want to,” Bezuidenhout said.

One of the biggest hurdles is the severe trauma these young victims experience. Many are too distressed to speak when they arrive for consultations, making it impossible to proceed with their cases immediately. Bezuidenhout said she goes at the pace of the child to avoid secondary trauma.

In sexual offences cases involving children, delayed reporting further complicates prosecutions. Younger children don’t always disclose the assaults immediately because often they don’t understand what’s happened to them. By the time a medical examination is conducted, physical evidence — such as bruising — may no longer be present, weakening the case. Additionally, statements are often taken by police officers who are not trained to handle sexual offences sensitively, sometimes leading to inaccurate translations when children speak in their home languages. 

For Bezuidenhout the lack of specialised sexual offences courts in Johannesburg exacerbates these challenges. “We don’t have dedicated courts, so magistrates handle general cases and sexual offences cases simultaneously,” she said. With limited court resources, including only seven CCTV rooms — some of which malfunction during load-shedding — young victims often endure further delays. “You can’t expect a small child to testify after 11am because it’s nap time. You won’t get anything from that child,” she added. 

Intermediaries, who help children communicate in court, are also in short supply. “Right now, we only have one intermediary who speaks Afrikaans, and we lack those who speak languages like Zim Ndebele and Lingala,” said Bezuidenhout. 

Despite these obstacles, efforts are being made to improve conviction rates. A dedicated team of prosecutors now exclusively handles sexual offences cases, ensuring more consistency and expertise. There is in-house training and peer reviews, where senior prosecutors mentor their junior colleagues. Bezuidenhout stressed the importance of counselling and screening processes, which have become stricter to prevent secondary victimisation.

“The problem still remains that there are still external factors ... where we have strong prosecutors that can address the court, and that can help secure a guilty verdict, but ultimately the child has to speak and the strength of the case lies, unfortunately, on how well the child testifies,” Bezuidenhout said.  

While the road remains difficult, Bezuidenhout is hopeful. But for real progress, more resources, better-trained intermediaries and dedicated sexual offences courts are urgently needed.

Justice for child victims shouldn’t be a privilege — it should be a promise. But in a system weighed down by delays, trauma and lost evidence, too many children are left carrying their pain alone.