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Children who kill: Violence breeds violence, say experts

───   09:09 Sun, 15 Sep 2019

Children who kill: Violence breeds violence, say experts | News Article

More than 700 children murdered somebody in the past year.


This chilling statistic was revealed with the release of the annual crime statistics by the South African Police Service (SAPS) on Thursday. 

And the number of child killers has been rising rapidly. In fact, in the past four years, the number of children who committed murder has risen from 47 to 736. 

The statistics paint a bleak picture of the levels of violent crime in South Africa, with increases seen in murders, attempted murders, sexual offences and robbery with aggravated circumstances. 

According to Zita Hansungule, senior project coordinator for the Centre for Child Law's Research, Monitoring and Evaluation Project at the University of Pretoria, one of the biggest factors that contributes to children acting violently is being exposed to violence themselves. 

"A lot of violent behaviour [in children] can be attributed to what children are exposed to, their environment they grow up in. Children could be exposed to violence, gang violence, drug abuse - all of those affect how a child responds."

Hansungule is quick to point out that one should not assume all children exposed to violence will become violent themselves, but that research shows that children who commit crime are acting out what they are being exposed to. 


Wider culture of violence

In an earlier interview with News24, UCT psychology professor Cathy Ward said that murders by children were "part of a wide culture of violence in our schools and communities".

A study by the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention (CJCP) has shown that violence is widespread in South African schools.

"One in five secondary school learners – a total of 22.2% – had experienced any violence while at school in the 12 months between August 2011 and August 2012. This translates to just over a million learners (1 020 597) across the country," according to the study. 

In 2016, the Birth to Twenty Plus (Bt20+) study, led by the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development at Wits University, found, among other findings, that 99% of all children have witnessed or have been victims of violence in their home, school and/or community, with 36% reporting that they had been victims of all categories of violence studied.


News24

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