Rape laws 'harming victims'

SEX VIOLENCE: PARLY TOLD TO ACT

- Sipho Mabena

South Africa's child protection laws are under fire, as experts warn that mandatory reporting policies, designed to shield minors from sexual abuse, may be inadvertently harming the very girls they aim to protect.

Speaking before parliament’s portfolio committee on women, youth and persons with disabilities yesterday, leading academics and rights advocates argued that misinterpretation of statutory rape provisions is criminalising adolescent girls, deterring them from seeking vital health services and obscuring the deeper realities of sexual violence and exploitation.

According to Rhodes University psychology professor Catriona Ida Macleod, “poorly implemented reporting policies risk punishing girls who experience statutory rape rather than the perpetrators”.

Macleod said while the Sexual Offences Act allowed consensual sexual activity between adolescents aged 13 to 15 within a two-year age gap, many teachers and health workers wrongly interpret all underage sexual activity as a criminal offence.