Of all the terrible things that happen in this country, this is the most shameful.
What is wrong with mature men who find sex with young girls acceptable and even exciting?
South Africa has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the world. The World Health Organisation says that about 1 in 4 girls in South Africa gets pregnant by the time that they are 19.
That is deeply troubling and shocking.
However, what really makes me sick to the stomach, is that hundreds of these girls are under the age of 13 – some of them as young as 8 or 10.
The vast majority of these little girls are impregnated by older men, with devastating consequences. Physically, although they are able to get pregnant, their bodies are not ready for sex or a pregnancy. During sex they will tear and bleed because they are too small for mature men. Apart from the excruciating pain and damage, this also makes the risk of sexually transmittal diseases, including HIV, very high. Birth at such a young age often results in devastating fistulas leaving the girls incontinent for life. There is also long term emotional and social trauma.
Let’s be very clear about this.
No matter what is being said, girls this young cannot consent.
The prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain that predicts the consequences of one's actions and controls impulse control - is still at least a decade away from being fully developed. Girls at 13 years of age – not to talk about 8, 9 or 10 - are barely out of toddlerhood and have no idea what sex involves, or the consequences of it.
This is why legally, the age of consent in South Africa is 16 years of age.
The law is clear: sex with someone younger than 16 is deemed a criminal act except if children over the age of 12 are engaging in sexual acts together and the partner is less than two years older. Any sexual act with a child younger than 12 is automatically statutory rape or sexual assault.
Yet, despite the fact that government releases statistics every year which confirms that hundreds of girls under the age of 12 are getting pregnant, we almost never hear of any statutory rape cases being brought before court.
Kekeletso Khena, a social activist, has now started a petition to force government to put policies in place that would make it obligatory for any medical worker or birth assistant to report an underage pregnancy to the police.
In 2021 it was made obligatory for schools to report pregnancies of girls younger than 16 to SAPS for criminal investigations. However, one can assume that reporting often doesn’t happen either because girls leave school before it is known or because of a lack of administrative efficiency.
Apart from the underreporting from schools, Khena also makes the point that the men who impregnate these young girls frequently pay off their families. Families accept this financial settlement in exchange for silence, because they are ashamed and already financially strained, without another mouth to feed.
So, the rapists and paedophiles (which is what anyone having sex with someone younger than 16 are), get away with it and more and more little girls are raped and left pregnant every year.
Yet, as Khena points out, at some stage the girls will have to get medical help or assistance from someone either before or during the birth. If those medical professionals, doulas or midwives have to report the cases to the police and the men who impregnated the girls can be arrested, charged and prosecuted things could change dramatically.
I think this is correct.
Doctors and medical personnel are obliged to report child abuse, which is exactly what teenage pregnancies are, so there should be no issue in terms of ethics here.
Of course, SAPS is already under pressure but if anything calls for a special unit to investigate and prosecute perpetrators, this is it.
In addition, it is high time that - in particular - male politicians and other male opinion leaders and influencers start taking a public stand on this issue. I would like to challenge all male politicians to use their social media and other platforms to express their disapproval of sex with minors.
Let’s hear them say: “Real men don’t have sex with teenage girls.”
Far too often we apportion the shame and blame to the girls who are the victims, instead of making these men who can’t control their primal urges to account for ruining these girls’ and their families’ lives and future.
In a country where many terrible things happen on a daily basis the inaction around this issue is most probably one of the most shameful things. So let’s all sign the petition https://www.change.org/p/stop-statutory-rape-in-south-africa?signed=true and let’s call on decent men to speak out and call other men to order.
As Khena says: “It is not enough to just be a country of outrage”.