As South Africa marks National Child Protection Week, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund has issued a dire warning: unless urgent and coordinated action is taken, more children will fall victim to a system that continues to fail them.

The Fund’s call comes in response to shocking crime statistics released by the South African Police Service (SAPS), showing that in just three months - October to December 2024 - 273 children were murdered, 480 were victims of attempted murder, and 2 164 were assaulted with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm.

“These figures are not abstractions,” said Dr Linda Ncube-Nkomo, CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. “They are children with names, birthdays, families, and dreams that will never be realised. We are witnessing not only a rise in violence, but the quiet unravelling of our nation’s promise to protect its most vulnerable. This is not a moment for statements. It’s a moment for decisive, collective action.”

According to the Fund, the violence is not random - it is rooted in deep structural inequality, failing protective systems, and a fraying social contract.

“The law may be progressive on paper,” said Refilwe Mokoena, Programme Manager for Child Safety and Protection at the Fund. “But in practice, the system continues to fail children. A recent report by the Teddy Bear Foundation found that of over 5 000 reported child abuse cases between 2019 and 2024, only 4% led to convictions. This tells us what we already know: children are being retraumatised by a justice system that is ill-equipped to protect them.”

Beyond the human toll, the economic cost is also staggering. A study released by the Fund last November estimates that violence against children costs South Africa between 2.3% and 6% of its GDP annually. The report calls this crisis both a moral and economic failure, compounded by weak enforcement of existing legal protections like Section 28 of the Constitution, which guarantees children’s rights to safety and care.

The Fund warns that the justice system often places the burden on children to prove harm, despite the trauma they face and the lack of support available to them - especially in poor and marginalised communities.

For nearly 30 years, the Fund has worked with grassroots organisations to support children through a "lifecycle" approach that spans from early childhood to youth empowerment. While its efforts have created safe spaces and built local capacity, these initiatives, it says, cannot withstand the weight of institutional failure alone.

“Community work cannot succeed in the face of non-responsive policing, chronic state failure, and persistent impunity,” the Fund said in a statement.

Rejecting the notion that child protection is a government responsibility alone, the Fund is calling for a united national response. This includes:

Strengthening the justice system through specialised SAPS units and trauma-informed prosecutors;
Investing in mental health services, particularly for traumatised children;
Rebuilding community infrastructure, including after-school programmes and youth centres;
Enforcing existing laws by tying child protection plans to budgets and holding officials accountable;
Building a national culture of care, with continuous awareness campaigns in all languages and provinces.

“Children should not have to die for their lives to be seen as meaningful. They should not have to scream to be heard. And they should not have to survive state neglect to thrive,” the Fund said.

Dr Ncube-Nkomo recalled the outcry that followed the 2019 murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana, a moment that was widely seen as a national reckoning around gender-based violence and child protection.

“We must stop being shocked. We must stop being surprised, and we must stop leaving it to someone else. We remember Uyinene Mrwetyana and the national reckoning that followed her murder,” she said. “That moment should have been a turning point. But we’ve continued to lose more children to silence and indifference. Not one more child should be a victim of our inaction.”

crime and courts