Justice staff fill a box for child survivors, and the law that should stand behind them
Department of Justice and Constitutional Development staff donated toys and books to child survivors of gender-based violence and femicide in a drive the minister calls her own, while the criminal case for that violence sits in the same department's courts.
Staff at the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development’s national office gathered on Thursday morning to hand over donated non-violent toys and books, in a charity drive the department says is the brainchild of Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi and is aimed at child survivors of gender-based violence and femicide.
The department announced the collection on its X account on 5 November, with four photographs of the handover, under the tags #DonateForHope and #EndGBVF alongside #AccessToJusticeForAll and #GovZAUpdates. The toys are described as non-violent, a detail that matters for children who have already met violence at home.
Gender-based violence and femicide is a crime in South Africa. The Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998 makes it an offence to assault, threaten, intimidate, harass or economically abuse a person in a domestic relationship, and it obliges the police to act on a complaint. The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007 sets out the sexual offences that carry the heaviest penalties in the country’s law, including those committed against children. Rape and murder sit in the common law. The Children’s Act 38 of 2005 adds a duty on anyone who suspects a child has been abused to report it, and the department whose staff packed these boxes is the one that runs the courts where those cases are meant to end.
That is the gap the drive is filling, and it is a gap the state has not closed. A child who has survived violence needs a place to sleep, a counsellor, a courtroom that moves and an adult who believes them. What the department’s staff brought on Thursday morning was a toy and a book. It is kindness, and it is not a case number, a protection order, a conviction or a bed in a place of safety. The children this drive reaches are the ones whose matter did not end in a courtroom, or has not yet.
Kubayi has put her name to the collection, which is more than many ministers do with a cause that does not come with a budget line. The department’s own post describes the drive as her brainchild. The photographs show staff, not survivors, because the children are protected and should be. That protection is part of the point.
The Enquirer asked the department how many children the drive reaches, how the toys and books are distributed, whether any of the children are referred to counselling or legal support, and what budget the department has put behind child survivors of gender-based violence and femicide this financial year, as distinct from staff donations. Those figures are not in the post. When they come, they will tell readers whether this is a morning’s goodwill or something larger.
What is already clear is that the national office of the department that prosecutes violence against women and children spent a morning collecting toys for the children who survived it. South Africans who work in courts, clinics and police stations will recognise the pattern. The state’s duty is written into law. The kindness is coming from staff who can see what the law has not yet delivered.
The Enquirer will report the department’s answers on distribution, referral and budget when they arrive, and will keep asking what happens to a child survivor after the box is opened.
