Thousands of convicted child murderers and rapists not recorded on Child Protection Register
A written reply to a Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary question revealed that since the establishment of the Child Protection Register (CPR) in 2010 only 1 660 names appear on Part B of the CPR, used to record people who are unsuitable to work with children to protect them from abuse.
The DA will write to the Minster of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, and the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Ronald Lamola, to ascertain why a mere 1 660 names appear on the CPR and what steps their Departments have taken with regards to the 2013 South African Human Rights Commissions (SAHRC) report that found massive failures in this regard.
We will also write to the SAHRC to request a follow up investigation into the matter to determine what steps each Department took to improve the capturing of names onto the CPR.
Organisations that work with children are supposed to vet each employee against the CPR to ensure that they are not a danger to children. Having so few names on the Register, means that thousands of child abusers and murderers are slipping through the cracks and are allowed to continue their campaigns of terror.
A previous parliamentary reply revealed a total of 50 980 child rapes reported between 2014 and 2017. 20.9 % of these cases ended in successful conviction. Why were these 10 653 names not added to the Register?