PAUL KIRK, Johannesburg | Friday
POLICE are investigating six cases of sexual assault and several instances of child abuse and neglect at a state-sponsored place of safety – a refuge for abandoned children – in Durban.
A member of the public, Kobus Swart, says orphans, crippled children and welfare cases were being kept in the same dormitories as child criminals at the Ocean View place of safety.
In one assault, a young female charge of the home was allegedly pulled behind a bush, beaten and raped by a male inmate of the home during a supervised visit to the beach.
In another incident four boys allegedly held down their victim and gang-raped her in a girls-only dormitory while she screamed for help.
The allegations have prompted Jackie Branfield, a Durban social worker who heads the Welfare Social Action Desk for the African Christian Democratic Party, to claim children are better off on the street. She has vowed never to place a child in the home.
The allegations came to light four weeks ago when Swart placed a minor who was in his care in the institution. The girl was assaulted while in the care of the institution, and the girl she was with was raped. Swart had been looking after the child while her parents were on an extended business trip overseas.
The night the 15-year-old girl was admitted to the institution, Swart’s wife received a hysterical phone call from the child saying that she had been badly assaulted and wanted to get out.
Swart went to the Wentworth police station where he opened a case of assault against the alleged ringleader of the gang of rapists. An arrest was made the next day, but the child was not transferred from the shelter.
Police claimed they broke the law on a regular basis to avoid sending orphans and lost children to the institution. One policewoman said: “It is an absolute nightmare. You cannot put a 10-year-old orphan whose parents have just been killed in a car crash in with a 17-year-old rapist or drug dealer. That is what is happening at Ocean View.”
A representative for the national Ministry of Welfare, Mbulelo Musi, said his department would investigate the alleged crimes as a priority.
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