A Tsonga community's leadership perspective of disclosure in child sexual abuse

Abstract

Child sexual abuse is a major concern. Almost all children from different cultural backgrounds, ethnic groups and socio economic backgrounds in South Africa experience sexual abuse. However, child sexual abuse cases are not being reported. Statistics still indicate underreporting of child sexual abuse cases. In compliance with the constitutional provisions, South Africa introduced the Criminal Law Sexual Offences and Related Matters Amendment Act 32 of 2007, which stipulates the types of sexual offences with children. It also makes mandatory for anyone with knowledge of the occurrence of child sexual abuse to report the case to the relevant authority; however child sexual abuse cases are not disclosed and reported. This study was aimed at exploring and describing Tsonga leadership's perspectives in the disclosure of child sexual abuse. The study was conducted with 3 headmen and 10 elders from Shihosana, Mudabula and Mbhalati Villages, within the Mudabula Traditional Council. The researcher adopted a qualitative approach to explore and describe the perception of the Tsonga leadership's perspectives regarding the disclosure of child sexual abuse. As a data collection tool, "a semi structured interview schedule", consisting of six open ended questions, was developed and used to collect data in this study. The data obtained from the interviews with the participants was analysed manually; whereby words, context, frequency of comments and what was said or not, was considered and then the main idea was determined. The data was divided in themes and subthemes, which were linked to literature from different sources. It was found that there is no standard definition of child sexual abuse as regarded by the Tsonga culture. The definitions given by participants are not in line with the definition as outlined in the Sexual Offences and Related Matters Amendment Act 32 of 2007. Cases of child sexual abuses are most likely not disclosed. However, if they are disclosed, children often disclose to their mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and sometimes uncles, with several factors influencing the disclosure of child sexual abuse. Families belonging to the Tsonga culture prefer dealing with cases of child sexual abuse within a family level, traditional leadership level and the last level being the professional level. The community is not involved in such cases, however the community is likely to sympathise and support the victim's family and reject the perpetrator when they get to know of the abuse. However, Tsonga communities are recently being empowered through awareness campaigns to report cases of child sexual abuse to professionals. This makes the leadership to be knowledgeable and to encourage their subjects to report cases of this nature to professionals. However, it was emphasised that communities still need to be educated and empowered about child sexual abuse matters. The study contributes to understanding of particular issues relating to culture and the disclosure of child sexual abuse. It provides insight to forensic social work practitioners of the nature and extent of the role of culture as an influence to the disclosure and non-disclosure of child sexual abuse, in order to adapt the professional strategies to perform cultural sensitive forensic investigations. The study also adds value to the field of forensic social work on a theoretical level