Forty-eight kilometers outside this down-at-the-heels seaside town, Justin Betombo tends his vanilla plants and cheers the local soccer team as if he had not a care in the world. And in fact, what was once his greatest worry has been almost magically lifted from his shoulders.
In the local prosecutor's office, a file filled with accusations that he had sodomized his nine-year-old niece has vanished.
Betombo was arrested in 2003 after the girl, Kenia, said he had savagely assaulted her. The police obtained his confession, which he later recanted, and a doctor's certificate that Kenia had been sexually violated, rendering her incontinent and anorexic. Twice they sent the case file to the local prosecutor.
There matters ended. Betombo attended one hearing in the prosecutor's office, but Kenia's parents say they were not told about it. The records are nowhere to be found. And Betombo walked away a free man. Kenia's parents, distressed by what they saw as a travesty of justice, asked that her name be published, hoping that her case would set an example.
Among Sub-Saharan Africa's children, such stories are disturbingly common. Even as this region races to adopt many of the developed world's norms for children, including universal education and limits on child labor, one taboo — child sexual abuse — remains stubbornly resistant to change.
In much of the continent, child advocates say, perpetrators are shielded by the traditionally low status of girls, a lingering view that sexual abuse should be dealt with privately and justice systems that constitute obstacle courses for victims.
Data are sparse and sexual violence is notoriously underreported. But South African police reports give an inkling of the sweep of child victimization. In the 12 months ending in March 2005, the police reported more than 22,000 cases of child rape. In contrast, England and Wales, with 9 million more people than South Africa, reported just 13,300 rapes of all females in the most recent 12-month period.
"The prevalence of child rape in South Africa goes from really, really high to astronomically high," said Rachel Jewkes, a specialist on sexual violence with South Africa's Medical Research Council.
Africa is not unique in its high rates of abuse. While a survey of nine countries last year by the World Health Organization found the highest incidence of child sexual abuse in Namibia — more than one in five women there reported being sexually abused before age 15 — it also found frequent abuse in Peru, Japan and Brazil, among other nations. Relatives are frequent perpetrators in Africa, as in much of the world. But this continent's children face added risks, especially at school. Half of Malawian schoolgirls surveyed in this year said male teachers or male classmates had touched them in a sexual manner without their permission.
The number of abuse cases is rising in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone and other African countries, statistics show. Whether that means more children are being victimized or more are coming forward — or both — is impossible to determine, experts say.
Researchers cite various reasons why abuse is so common: poverty, which makes it harder for parents to keep children safe; a legacy of violent, oppressed societies, and cultural mores that allow offenders to escape criminal punishment, often by marrying their victims or compensating their victims' families.
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