Action Society says the revelation that 292 girls between the ages of 10 and 14 gave birth in the Western Cape between April and December 2025 should raise serious questions far beyond healthcare.
The organisation said every pregnancy involving a child should immediately be treated as a child protection case, with urgent steps taken to establish whether abuse, exploitation, grooming or another criminal offence had occurred.
The concerns raised by Action Society come just months after the Western Cape was rocked by the case of an 11-year-old Atlantis girl who gave birth after allegedly being raped.
A 32-year-old man, believed to be known to the family, was arrested and charged with rape, while the child’s mother was also arrested for allegedly failing to report the sexual offence. The case placed renewed focus on how child pregnancies are detected, reported and investigated.
Action Society national spokesperson Juanita du Preez said the figures pointed to a serious protection failure.
“Every child pregnancy is a protection failure. These are not ordinary teenage pregnancies. These are children giving birth. A child of 10 does not need better pregnancy services. She needed better protection long before she ever arrived at a maternity ward,” said Du Preez.
“The Western Cape has told us how many children gave birth. It now owes the public another number: how many perpetrators have been brought to justice?”
According to Action Society, the figures expose a critical accountability gap, with the organisation questioning how many criminal investigations, arrests and convictions followed after the births were recorded.
“We know that 292 children gave birth. But how many criminal investigations followed? How many perpetrators were identified? How many arrests were made? How many convictions were secured? Until those questions can be answered, these are not only pregnancy statistics. They are accountability statistics,” Du Preez said.
The organisation said pregnancies involving children this young often point to sexual abuse, coercion, grooming, exploitation or a wider failure by adults and institutions to protect children.
“The responsibility can never rest with the child. Our first question should never be why she became pregnant. It should be why she was not protected,” Du Preez said.
Action Society added that children should be equipped with age-appropriate knowledge about body safety, healthy boundaries, recognising grooming and knowing where to seek help.
“Protecting children from abuse is fundamentally different from encouraging sexual activity. Silence has never protected children. It has protected perpetrators,” Du Preez said.
The organisation called for every child pregnancy to trigger a coordinated response between health authorities, police, social development and child protection services to ensure the child’s safety and determine whether criminal offences had been committed.
“If the system records another child giving birth but never identifies the person responsible, then it has failed that child twice. Every child deserves protection long before she becomes another statistic,” Du Preez said.
Tracy-Lynn Ruiters
iol.co.za