GENEVA, Switzerland, April 10 (UPI) -- South Africa needs to beef up its efforts to combat the growing problem of violent child sexual abuse -- including rape, trafficking for prostitution, and alleged ritual killings -- an independent U.N. expert said Thursday.
Sexual abuse of children could become unmanageable in South Africa if it is not addressed, Juan Miguel Petit, U.N. independent expert on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, said in a news briefing Thursday.
According to government data gathered by the report, 15,650 rapes of children were reported to South Africa's police between January and September 2001. "Of these, 5,859 were under the age of 11," the report said.
Young children "are exposed to every type of sexual abuse imaginable," and in some cases are severely beaten or even killed during the assaults to maintain their silence, the study found.
These crimes are perpetrated both by individuals and by groups, and incidences of gang rape reportedly are increasing.
One worrying trend, according to the report to the 53-member country Human Rights Commission, are accounts of child rape committed "based on a belief by the perpetrator that having sex with a virgin or a young child may cure him of HIV/AIDS."
Moreover, the existence of so-called "mutti killings" -- murders committed by people practicing black magic to obtain organs of children -- is shocking, Petit said.
Another increasing concern to police, Petit said, is the problem of children being trafficked to South Africa.
Children from Angola, Mozambique, Senegal, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda end up as prostitutes on the streets of Johannesburg and Cape Town. Angolan, Congolese and Nigerian syndicates are responsible for much of the trafficking, but criminal gangs from Bulgaria, the Thailand-Chinese triad, and even the Russian mafia is involved, the report notes.
Petit said Interpol also considers child trafficking "a growing problem" worldwide, "one aggravated by the lack of figures, and the silence on which it grows especially in big countries, and in big cities where it is difficult to identify the problems," he added.
South Africa's government is "a little bit conservative in speaking openly about this matter," Petit said, and suggested large education and training campaigns to stem the problem.
