Child Protection Units Stretched Too Thin

Statement by Ian Cameron MP – DA Deputy Spokesperson on Police:

As South Africa reaches the end of Child Protection Week, the Democratic Alliance (DA) is raising concern that SAPS may be placing even more pressure on already under-resourced Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences units.

This follows an oversight visit to Worcester FCS about two weeks ago, and information subsequently brought to my attention regarding the practical implementation of the FCS mandate under National Instruction 2/2019.

The concern is simple. SAPS appears to be broadening the operational burden on specialist FCS units without ensuring that these units have the staff, vehicles, forensic social work support, language capacity and administrative support needed to do the work properly.

Worcester FCS serves 10 police stations. The furthest station, Laingsburg, is approximately 175 km away. The unit has only 7 vehicles in total, including a single-cab vehicle that is not suitable for transporting victims, especially children and vulnerable victims.

Staffing is also under severe pressure. For 5 of the stations served by Worcester FCS, there are only 3 members per shift. For the other 5 stations, there is only 1 member per shift.

This is not a sustainable model for a specialist unit expected to investigate child rape, statutory rape, sexual offences and serious crimes against vulnerable victims.

The DA has repeatedly revealed the same deeper problem in SAPS: strategic management failures at the top are causing basic, bread-and-butter policing services on the ground to fail. These failures are not abstract. They affect whether a child’s rape case is properly investigated, whether a docket is court-ready, whether a survivor is interviewed properly, whether DNA is processed, and whether a case survives long enough to result in a conviction.

Earlier today, the DA warned that victims can do everything right and still be denied justice because of a broken system. They can report the crime. They can give a statement. They can submit to the medical and forensic process. They can cooperate with investigators. But if the FCS unit is overloaded, if the detective is carrying too many dockets, if there are not enough vehicles, if forensic social work capacity is limited, and if forensic processing is delayed, the case can still collapse.

This is especially serious in statutory rape matters.

Information before Parliament shows that from 2020 to 2025, SAPS recorded 3 232 statutory rape cases. Of these, 1 853 were withdrawn before or during court proceedings. That is 57%. Only 449 resulted in convictions, fewer than 1 in 7.

Cases are withdrawn for many reasons, including weak investigations, poor statements, family pressure, intimidation, delays, poor victim support, weak forensic evidence and loss of confidence in the justice system. But an overloaded FCS system makes each of these risks worse.

A statutory rape case is not strengthened at the end of the process. It is built, or weakened, from the first report. The first statement, the medical examination, the forensic evidence, the child interview, the docket quality and the follow-up work all matter.

If FCS investigators are diverted into broad detective work across large rural jurisdictions, they are inevitably pulled away from the specialist work they were created to perform.

I have already written to the National Commissioner for clarity on this matter.

The DA has asked for answers on the current active docket load at Worcester FCS, the split between sexual offence and assault-related dockets, staffing levels, vacancies, vehicle availability, forensic social work capacity, language capacity, and the operational rationale for placing such a broad workload on a specialist unit covering vast rural distances.

This is not criticism of the dedicated FCS members who continue to work under difficult conditions. It is criticism of a system that keeps expanding responsibilities without matching those responsibilities with resources.

Child Protection Week cannot be allowed to end with speeches and slogans while the very specialist units meant to protect children are stretched beyond reason.

SAPS must explain whether the current FCS model is operationally sound, properly resourced and capable of protecting children, or whether specialist units are being quietly overloaded to the point where even strong cases risk being weakened before they reach court.

The DA will continue to pursue this matter until SAPS provides clear answers and a credible plan to protect FCS capacity where children and survivors need it most.