‘Children exposed to violent environment perpetrate violence’
Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund CEO Linda Ncube Nkomo highlighted the disturbing connection between childhood exposure to violence and rising societal issues at the Women in Business Breakfast event.
Children who grow up being abused or exposed to violence in their homes face a myriad of challenges.
This is according to Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund CEO Linda Ncube NkomoSome who was speaking at a Women in Business Breakfast event.
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The event hosted by the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund in collaboration with the First Rand Empowerment Foundation at Inanda Club on November 20, aimed to promote discussions among businesswomen dedicated to supporting the future of South Africa’s children.
Nkomo said the violence that some children experience at a young age in their homes, can lead to societal problems such as being perpetrators of gender-based violence.
“Violence that is being normalised at home, whether it’s children being hit or partners fighting against each other, ends up being a societal crisis that needs to be resolved,” she said.
“When children are victims of violence or when they witness violence, it becomes normalised. And then we end up dealing with gender-based violence.
“We end up dealing with sexual harassment in workplaces, dealing with bullying in workplaces and a lot of intrapersonal violence because we normalise violence in our homes.”
Ncube said South Africa had not even started to scratch the surface in terms of protecting its children considering that the child murder rate in SA was four times the global average.
“Today, it’s World Children’s Day but there is nothing to celebrate in terms of being a child in South Africa. And we have taken our eyes off the fact that children are the greatest asset of our nation and we are tripping away that asset, we are destroying that asset.”
She added as the Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children approaches, more focus should be on children and it should not be a 16-day focus but a 24/7 focus.
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Teddy Bear Foundation for Abused Children director Shalteda Omar said the system is failing children.
“We just conducted a study from 2019 to 2024 looking at children who have gone through a court preparation programme, where children who have opened criminal cases have to testify, and the outcome of that is very poor.
“The conviction rate we found from over 5 000 cases was 4%… Now, these are serious offences. 21% of the children were victims of physical abuse and 46% sexual abuse,” Omar said.
She added of those 5 000 cases, 514 were dismissed. “What message is that sending to our victims, to the families, to the nation, that crime pays?
“It’s not worth coming forward, making a disclose disclosure, reporting it, and then having to go through the cooling process of appearing in court repeatedly over a lengthy time. There is no hope given to children and victims of child abuse.”
Omar said historically, more focus was put on violence against girls and women than the boy child and adult males.
“So to champion this war that is being waged against girls and women, we need to bring the boy and men into the equation to champion and fight the scourge of violence.”
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