Teenage pregnancy and statutory rape: More must be done to put offenders in jail

The Gauteng Department of Health recently revealed that there were more than 23, 000 teenage pregnancies in the province between April 2020 and March 2021.

These are extremely troubling statistics.

What particularly made me sick to my stomach was that more than 900 of these girls were between the ages of 10 and 14 years old!

So here is my question: If the government is aware of more than 900 cases of statutory rape in just one of the country’s provinces, why are the perpetrators not behind bars?

Legally, the age of consent in South Africa is 16 years of age.

Sex with someone younger is deemed a criminal act except if the children engaging in sexual acts together are between the ages 12 and 16. It is also not criminal for a child older than 12 years to have sex with a partner who is less than two years older than they are.

However, the law makes it very clear that no child under the age of 12 years can consent to sex. Therefore any sexual act with a child under the age of 12 years is statutory rape or sexual assault.

It is not clear how many of the 948 girls were under the age of 12, but one can assume there were a number of them.

What makes these figures so troubling is that it’s most probably just the tip of the iceberg. 

We know that up to half of all pregnancies end in miscarriage before a woman misses a menstrual period or even knows she is pregnant.  Most girls are also not yet fertile before 14 years of age, since 73% only start to menstruate between the ages of 13 and 14.  

This would imply that the number of girls who had been subject to sexual assault or rape could be more than double the figure released by the Department, and it seems things could be much worse.  

I struggled to find updated, detailed statistics from the provinces outside of Gauteng, but a report released by the Department of Education in 2012 revealed that 109 pupils in grade 3 fell pregnant in the previous year. This would mean that girls as young as  8 or  9 years of age are falling pregnant! Another 107 became pregnant in grade 4 and over 5,000 in the next grade or at 11 years of age. 

The shocking reality is that there are clearly thousands of incidents of statutory rape of very young girls per annum in South Africa.

Yet, we rarely hear of any prosecutions. The annual crime statistics do not distinguish between rape and statutory rape and even though I tried hard to get some information on prosecutions, I couldn’t find any.

I can only assume that there are very few.

The question is why? 

Surely, in most cases it is as easy as asking the child who the father of the baby is.

My guess would be that in the vast majority of cases, it would be much older men.  

In 2018 the BBC ran a story of 36 girls, aged between nine and 19 who became pregnant in a small area in Limpopo called Dididi.

According to Limpopo health authorities, thirteen of the 36 tested positive for HIV. However, all of their parents tested negative.  The then MEC for Health, Phophi Ramathuba, rightfully asked: “Where are they getting this virus, if not from older men?” She added: "If these children were only sleeping with each other, we wouldn't be talking about HIV infections, we would be talking about teenage pregnancy. Now we are also dealing with new HIV infections in teenagers here."

When she released the numbers of teenage pregnancies the Gauteng Health MEC, Nomathemba Mokgethi said that the department had no data on how many statutory rape cases were opened because of the pregnancies. She confirmed that the cases were reported by healthcare and social workers at hospitals and clinics to the Department of Social Development and SAPS, but that it is then up to SAPS and the NPA to take it further.

This (typical) passing of the buck is just not good enough. These children were subject to a criminal act that will have devastating long-term implications for them and their babies.

Despite the ruling by the Constitutional Court that schools may not expel pregnant students, it’s likely that most of these girls would have dropped out of school, perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

These girls are still children and neither physically nor mentally ready to give birth. Therefore, these pregnancies often result in serious health complications and even death. (Teenage mothers account for more than one-third of all maternal deaths recorded in SA). 

It is simply unforgiveable that thousands of men who are involved in these acts of sexual assault and statutory rape against very young children get away with it year after year.

Presumably, they know who the children are – so all it takes is a willingness to pursue the cases.

If the President and the government are really serious about fighting gender-based violence, they need to make a concerted effort in putting these men behind bars.