by Robyn Wolfson Vorster | Nov 28, 2025 | Child Protection Legislation & Child Rights, Children’s Online World
Behind the photo ops and ceremonial handovers at the G20 Social Summit was a fierce battle that nearly saw children’s voices silenced once again. Children had to fight to get a seat at the table. They don’t want symbolic participation, they want real power to “shape our world”, but the problem, says Robyn Wolfson Vorster, is that adults don’t want children to speak truth to power.
The 2025 G20 Social Summit ended in an unprecedented manner for South Africa’s children when, on World Children’s Day, 14-year-old Amogelang Mashele read out the summit declaration and 7-year-old Jordan Motshegoa ceremonially handed it to the president.
But the triumph concealed the fierce battle behind the scenes to get children a seat at the table, and how close they came to once again having their voices silenced.
The children’s declaration drafted at the end of the G20 Social Summit’s pre-summit includes content from 70 children from across South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya who attended the summit in person along with those who participated virtually or provided content to the delegates through the children’s social media platforms which they cleverly used to crowd source input from diverse groups of children cutting across age, race, class and gender. They, in turn, represent approximately 2.3 billion children, more than a quarter of the world’s population.
It begins: “We, the children of the Children20, are speaking together from different countries, languages and backgrounds. We ask G20 leaders to hear us. The choices you make today will shape our lives tomorrow. We want to help build the world we will grow up in. We are not too young to understand. We are not too young to lead. And we are not too young to be included.”
Delegates debated the five thematic areas designated for the Social Summit – specifically, digital inclusion and safeguarding, trade, climate justice, finance and achieving the sustainable development goals and 2030 agenda. While the resultant conclusions are plainly stated (the declaration was written so that a 10-year-old could understand it), the content is far from basic. To quote one of the teens at the G20 summit: “We chose to avoid the complex and ambiguous language used by adults when they want to avoid accountability.”
It’s a clarion call to action.
The children call for an end to fraud, corruption and waste, for more funding for child-centred projects, for climate justice, trade that protects child rights, safe online spaces and tech that helps children grow rather than putting them in danger, more effective education, support for children with special needs, combatting of hunger, child participation in policy changes around all spheres of life that affect children, strong safeguarding and honest accountability. Individually, they opposed xenophobic education policies, and identified the gender-based violence crisis, statutory rape and mental health as life-defining challenges.
Adding their lived experiences to the discussions, a teenage girl from rural South Africa described “the weight of danger online feeling heavier than my schoolbag”. A boy from Zimbabwe noted that hunger “steals your decisions before it steals your strength”.
They also asked for children to be equal partners in decision-making and a child representative in parliament, quite literally a seat at the table. The challenge to government leaders and even other sectors in civil society is, “nothing about us without us”. This is boldly encapsulated in declaration’s concluding paragraph: “We don’t want symbolic participation, we want real power to shape our world.”
And herein lies the problem, because while many in authority are comfortable with child participation in principle and mindful of the photo ops their presence brings, they are less willing to allow children to direct the process, to disrupt agendas, to fire adult facilitators, to find ways to include even the youngest children, and to speak truth to power.
It was exactly what they did. Children challenged the agenda of the pre-summit, requesting additional time to debate the themes and come up with solution-based statements. At the Social Summit, they questioned the relegation of their side events to the furthermost corner of the property, they insisted on including even the youngest children (who created the thematic posters that famously made it onto the stage during the declaration handover), and asked uncomfortable questions. For example, when told by an African Union representative that they had both rights and responsibilities, one of the
children asked how they could learn responsibilities when adults consistently withhold agency and authority from them.
Authenticity, emotion, and genuineness
Respectful and mindful of protocol throughout, their approach was so clearly lacking in artifice and staidness that Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni quipped during the launch of the Unicef State of the World’s Children report after the final event, that during the handover of the declaration the children had “programme-directed themselves”. Which they had.
They ad-libbed some of the formalities, took selfies with the president, and when little Jordan was too shy to hand over the declaration to the president, it was the children who, much to the seeming delight of the president, took his hand and coached him in what to do.
Without trying, they added an authenticity, emotion and genuineness to what, as a civil society-led initiative, should never have become a stolid event. But it was this lack of decorum, the age and boldness of the participants that resulted in
the most pushback from those in authority.
As one member of the children’s support team explained, even those tasked with forming policy on children’s behalf seem to find child-led dialogues and their voices confronting or uncomfortable.
And it was always going to be an uphill battle. Children20 had its genesis during the Brazil presidency on the G20 in 2024, but despite the recommendation for child participation, the Brazilians, who undoubtedly had their hands full institutionalising the voices of civil society in the G20 by means of the Social Summit, were not able to get it ratified. The upshot was that South Africa entered the G20 presidency cycle with the role of children uncertain.
Not only was the Children20 not recognised as a formal grouping in the Social Summit, but the Youth20, which is a formally ratified grouping, chose to produce a chairperson’s report this year rather than a formal declaration because, as group’s sherpa attested, they have yet to have any of their G20 recommendations implemented.
Nonetheless, the South African children’s sector (through the South African National Child Right’s Coalition, Unicef, Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, Save the Children, Childline, Hold My Hand, DGMT and others) began lobbying for recognition of a formal children’s engagement group immediately after the handover. It was a request that was denied. Organisers were forced to proceed without it.
Despite its lack of a formal mandate, the sector began to mobilise children to provide input, forming a WhatsApp group amongst the children to get them talking, creating and distributing child-friendly content and planning for a pre-summit (amongst the many barriers to children’s input, the summit was scheduled for November in the middle of their
exams).
‘The future is our voice. Our voice is now’
It was this pre-summit that produced the Children’s Declaration, but despite tireless efforts from the children’s sherpa and organising committee of Children20, children nonetheless entered into the Social Summit without a designation, with their contributions falling out of category.
The relegation of their engagements to the furthermost corner of the event, despite the gravitas of contributions from the AU, Sherpa of Y20, the Brave Movement and others, was proof of their uncertain status and organisers were fearful that they would end up being a side event as they had in Brazil.
Moreover, despite the conference organisers stating publicly that children would hand over the G20 Social Summit declaration, there was immense pushback, both from formally designated groups and from officials worried that the children may be embarrassing, wouldn’t understand or be able to answer questions, or be unable to acquit themselves
well. It was a battle to the end.
It was why there wasn’t a dry eye amongst the adults in the Children20 team when the children handed over the summit declaration. Far from being a clever PR stunt, doffing a hat to the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, it was a triumph in the ongoing fight to get children seen and their voices heard.
Equally significant is news that the hope expressed by 16-year-old Sesona Qhimngqoshe, a member of the Children’s Parliament, will be fulfilled. She asked the G20 leaders to officially make Children20 part of the formal engagements in each G20 so that the children of South Africa can hand over to the children of the United States.
The children’s 2025 input has been officially recognised and they’ve been asked to submit their participation reports to the G20 sherpa. While uncertainty remains about how the United States will lead the 2026 G20, formal registration of the Children20 will occur prior to next year’s summit. The upshot is that children’s input will now be harder for those
in authority to ignore.
To quote Sesona, it’s proof that for children “anything is possible if you put your mind to it”.
It’s fitting that the children should have the last word. The Children’s Declaration concludes: “Listen to us, work with us, build the future with us. The future is our voice. Our voice is now.” Are we listening?
Robyn Wolfson Vorster is a child protection advocate and founder of For the Voiceless.
First published in News24 on 28.11.2025. To cite, please attribute to Robyn Wolfson Vorster from For the Voiceless and note that the article was first published in News24.
by Robyn Wolfson Vorster | Feb 19, 2025 | Child Abuse, Children’s Online World
Up to 60% of South African children have seen pornography by age 10; 20% of children have been subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation online; and harmful sexual behaviours among children, including rape and incest, are at crisis levels.
It’s been two years since South Africa participated in the global Disrupting Harm survey which identified the prevalence and impact of online child sexual abuse and exploitation (OCSEA) in the country, and a year since Daily Maverick sounded the alarm about children’s early and prolonged exposure to pornography and other harms children experience online.
They are harms that government appears to be taking seriously. In 2024, when it was a participant in the first global conference on ending violence against children and signatory to the resultant Bogota Call to Action – a global commitment to protecting children from violence – South Africa’s pledge included online safety.
Also in 2024, four regulatory entities launched the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and Media Regulators Forum, designed to protect children and vulnerable groups in digital spaces; the Film and Publications Board launched a WhatsApp hotline.
Moreover, online safety was included as a theme of the 2024 “16 Days of Activism for no violence against women and children”.
But even a cursory comparison of South Africa’s commitment to those of other Bogota signatories, and an evaluation of government’s presentation to the Parliamentary Committee on social development about what it has done to prevent and mitigate online harm, raises alarm bells.
Government’s strategy, which ignores the harm of children’s exposure to pornography and includes no mention of legislative or policy reforms, but instead focuses on education and awareness raising, is a long-game approach, akin to going door-to-door to warn people of an approaching hurricane.
It might be apposite if we weren’t already in the middle of the storm.
Problematic or harmful sexual behaviours
The reports came with depressing regularity over 2024. Concerned schools, ranging from elite private schools to quintile 1 and 2 government schools, sought help with problematic or harmful sexual behaviours often enacted in public spaces, at school, on camps and tours, and after hours between pupils.
Girls caught naked and kissing each other in school bathrooms; boys and girls masturbating in public spaces, either alone or in a group; boys experimenting together sexually on school camps, including a group of boys using bottles for anal penetration; reports of groping and fingering; sexual grooming of peers; and even full sexual assault, often in public places.
While some may argue that such behaviours aren’t uncommon among teens, these reports aren’t coming from high schools. Instead, every one of these incidents involved children aged between six and 11, neither legally able to consent to sex nor to be charged with a crime because they’re under the age of criminal capacity.
In one of the most concerning stories, John* a nine-year-old boy, sexually assaulted Ella*, an 11-year-old girl. The boy was bewildered about her reluctance to participate.
In another, a boy was seen sexually assaulting preschool girls on the side of the road.
The reports aren’t isolated. Experts are concerned that harmful sexual behaviours, defined as child-on-child sexual abuse or inappropriate sexual behaviours, are at epidemic levels among children.
In the United Kingdom, 50% of sexual assaults of children reported to the police have been committed by other children. South Africa lacks these disaggregated sexual assault statistics.
But, a recent study on harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) among South African children conducted by Jelly Beanz, an organisation dedicated to helping children impacted by trauma and abuse, found that in 2016, in almost a third of South African sexual abuse cases involving children, the perpetrator was another child. If South Africa is following international trends, that percentage has increased in the last eight years.
Exposure to online pornography
The HSB cases all have a common denominator – at least one of the involved children had been exposed to online pornography prior to the incident. In its book, South African Children and Pornography, designed to help practitioners manage the pornography crisis, Jelly Beanz explain that young children are particularly affected by viewing pornography and feel compelled to either co-watch with other children or to act out what they have seen. The consequences can be tragic.
In a well-publicised story published in the Sowetan in October 2024, a boy was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment after he began raping other children at age 12. His rapes included that of a 12-year-old classmate, an 11-year-old boy, a five-year-old girl and the attempted rape of an 11-year-old girl. Along with a violent family life, the boy confessed to watching pornography on his phone and then “putting what he saw into practice”.
For Edith Kriel, Managing Director of Jelly Beanz, the case epitomises an adult problem for which children are paying. Kriel lamented the institutional failure that resulted in this child not getting the help he needed to stop harming others. Social workers had an opportunity to intervene after the first rape, but misunderstood the legislated age of criminal capacity and failed to ask the right questions about how his online world was driving his behaviour.
At nine, John* had already been viewing pornography for several years. When asked about it, his heartbroken mother said that she had been aware of his pornography usage, but thought he had stopped watching.
As much victims as actors
The Harmful Sexual Behaviours study emphasises that children who commit these crimes when under 12, the age of criminal capacity, are “children at risk” and in many cases, “sad children not bad children”. Those whose behaviour originates in pornography viewing are as much victims as they are actors.
But this does not mitigate harm, and children may still end up in diversion programmes, if these are even available, and labelled a pervert or paedophile by their peers.
In at least one case, a 10-year-old boy was forced to leave his school because of bullying and name-calling from other boys and their parents after a shared and mutually initiated sexual experiment with three of his peers on a school camp.
The South African government urgently needs to acknowledge the link between pornography viewing and HSB drawn by multiple academic studies and the United Kingdom Children’s Commissioner, and act to protect children from exposure to pornography as part of its strategy to shield children from online harms. It’s critical because if South African statistics are accurate, and up to 60% of children are exposed to pornography by age 10, these incidents will not decrease without active government intervention.
Nor is HSB the only negative outcome of children viewing pornography. It is also linked to early sexual debuts in children, willingness to take more risks sexually, including anal sex, facial ejaculations, strangulation, unprotected sex and sexual violence.
A 2010 study which analysed the most watched pornography scenes found that 88% of them contained physical violence – 94% of this violence was directed towards women and in 96% of the scenes, the women portrayed pleasure when aggressed against.
In a country with such high levels of violence against women and children and such concerning rates of child pregnancies, including among children aged 10-14, policymakers cannot ignore the impact of pornography viewing.
Online exploitation
Further, exposure to pornography has been identified by frontline workers as the most significant risk factor in making children vulnerable to online child sexual abuse and exploitation (Ocsea).
In 2024, more than 100 million images or videos of children being sexually abused were found online, 98% of these show children under 13, and in January 2025, South African police arrested Darren Wilken for the possession and distribution of more than 10 million child sexual abuse images and videos. Yet, pornography viewing is not included in the government’s definition of online harm.
The online harms that government does acknowledge, including online grooming, sexting and sextortion, are equally prevalent in South Africa. A global 2024 study done by the University of Edinburgh and the Human Dignity Foundation for Childlight found that more than 300 million, or one in eight children worldwide, had been subject to online solicitation in the past 12 months. This includes unwanted sexual talk such as non-consensual sexting, unwanted sexual questions, non-consensual taking, sharing and/or exposure to sexual images and videos, and requests for unwanted sexual acts by adults or other youths.
Of the regions surveyed, southern and East Africa had the highest measured rates of online solicitation of children in the past 12 months (which they defined as online grooming, online sexual harassment, pressure to obtain images, voluntarily provided images in a statutorily impermissible relationship, unwanted/non-consensual/pressured sexting, and unwanted sexual talk). The studies they cited showed that 20.4%, or one in five children in the region had been targeted over the previous 12 months.
This study mirrored the findings of the South African version of the Disrupting Harm study which indicated that in the year prior to the survey, 19% of the 9-17-year-olds surveyed were asked “to talk about sex or sexual acts with someone when they did not want to”; 22% had been asked to share sexual information about themselves; 16% said they had been asked to share a naked photo or video of themselves; and 7% had been extorted using naked photos or images (the latter two figures are likely to be higher because these crimes are frequently underreported).
Nor are online harms exclusively related to pornography or Ocsea. In 2024, Dr Jonathan Haidt’s book, the Anxious Generation detailed the rise of phone-based children, the loss of a play-based childhood, and how it’s affecting children.
Haidt, along with other experts in this space such as Dr Jean Twenge, Dr Becky Foljambe and Professor Gloria Mark highlight in stark detail how our children’s online world has resulted in a myriad of harms ranging through depression, loneliness, self-harm and suicide, high-risk behaviours, changes to sleep, relationships and academic performance, and compulsivity – all of which are impacting on children’s working memory, ability to concentrate, emotional regulation, judgement, impulsivity, cognitive skills and ability to learn.
SA’s high-risk environment
While these are global challenges, South Africa is a particularly high-risk environment because of the saturation of children with internet-enabled devices; the absence of care for many; the lack of tech-savvy caregivers who recognise that children are no longer safe “in their own rooms” and who have actively put protective mechanisms in place; the deficiency of budget for policing and prosecution of online crimes; and the dearth of legislation and policy to protect children online.
In response to these crises, government has focused on awareness and education. In December 2024, the Department of Social Development reported to the parliamentary portfolio committee that since the country became a member of the WeProtect Global Alliance in July 2020, government has trained almost 1,000 practitioners on online safety and run several workshops for children, caregivers and educators.
The South African government’s commitment to continue with this strategy is confirmed in its Bogota pledge which states that the country will “build capacity of different stakeholders on online safety including parents, caregivers, children, frontline workers, and strengthen the curriculum in schools promoting the online safety of children by 2027”.
Awareness-raising and education are mission critical for dealing with online harms, and a key action step highlighted in the evidence-based action report arising from the global Disrupting Harm study. But, as veteran child protection activist Joan van Niekerk points out, “in the absence of any reported monitoring and evaluation, it’s impossible to say how many of South Africa’s 21 million children have been reached through each trained practitioner.”
Problematic strategy
The strategy is problematic for other reasons too.
First, it is a painstakingly slow approach to a clear and present danger. Not only is the risk to children of delayed interventions immense, but the department doesn’t have the resources to provide restorative justice and support services for the number of children already exhibiting harmful sexual behaviours.
Equally, South Africa has neither the capacity in policing services nor the justice system to be able to assist children groomed and targeted online, often after being exposed to pornography.
Second, an education and awareness approach inadvertently places the burden of responsibility on children to keep themselves safe. Not only is this a devolution and avoidance of the state’s duty of care for vulnerable children, but it places children in an impossible situation.
The Disrupting Harm survey consistently found that children were aware of risks online and professed that they wouldn’t take them, but still did. For example, more than 50% of children said that it was very risky to talk to someone on the internet that they hadn’t met before, but equally, more than 50% reported that they had done so; 32% had shared their personal details including full name, address or phone number despite knowing that this could result in harm.
Kriel illustrates using the story of a 7-year-old who was exposed to pornography after he searched for the words “bum” and “boys peeing”, despite having signed a contract agreeing not to search for anything inappropriate on the school iPads. In response, the school blamed this Grade 1 for “breaking his promise”, thus deferring its fundamental responsibility to protect children when they access school tech.
As experts attest, children’s brains are still developing through childhood, and they cannot always predict the consequences of their actions. Equally, as studies are confirming, children who have been shielded from risk “in the real world” are often far more compelled to take risks online.
But most importantly, we are pitting children against the pornography industry that in 2023 was worth $1.1-billion in America alone; against programmed backdoors and sophisticated algorithms designed to trap children into viewing pornography; against big tech’s lack of accountability for allowing children’s natural curiosity about sex and sexuality to result in them being exposed to all genres of pornography, including rape and snuff pornography; against sexual predators; and against criminal syndicates preying on children’s need for belonging and identity and so effective that in one study, two-thirds of the 6,000 Gen Z youth and young adults surveyed across six countries had been sextorted.
State responsibility
It isn’t a fair fight, and we cannot make it children’s responsibility to stay safe. For this reason, pledges from other countries place the onus on the state to protect children.
For example, the United Kingdom’s commitment is to “international leadership to prevent child sexual exploitation and abuse in all its forms, including online child sexual abuse, through the implementation of legislation and the sharing of knowledge and insight with key partners across the world. This includes responding to the increasing threat of AI-generated child sexual abuse and exploitation and supporting innovative work from across the tech sector to use AI to detect and prevent this harm”.
Zimbabwe’s pledge includes legislation designed to protect children in the online space.
It is also the reason why Australia’s recently enacted ban on social media for children under 16 has no penalties for children or caregivers if they contravene the restrictions, but places the burden of responsibility squarely on technology companies to ensure that they do not permit underage use.
Failure to comply – as with the EU regulations, and the UK’s Online Safety Act which will be enacted in 2025 and is designed to protect children from exposure to pornography, self-harm and violent content – will result in huge financial penalties for the companies who transgress. In the case of the UK, that is up to 10% of their global revenue.
But perhaps the biggest problem with government’s approach is that, as with its other strategies to stop child violence, it represents a failure to use the power afforded to it to make systemic and societal change.
Suggested actions
The suggested action items from the Disrupting Harm study include governments investing in child protection services, budgeting for law reform and policy development, and financially capacitating first responders such as increasing the number and expertise of practitioners, dedicated police services including in cybercrimes, and child-friendly justice.
Further, it recommends using legislation amendments, new legislation and policy to address Ocsea and exposure to pornography.
Frustratingly, the South African Law Reform Commission has already done the work to draft the necessary legislation. As highlighted by Daily Maverick in December 2023, recommendations to protect children from exposure to pornography and other harms online have been gathering dust for the past three years.
No one in government has stated publicly why the legislation has never been actioned. But, if the minister of social development and the new minister of justice are committed to online safety for children, introducing the legislation to Parliament would be the most effective way to achieve this.
In a country with a myriad of child protection challenges and profound levels of exposure to violence, keeping children safer online could significantly minimise their risk of harm.
Surely it should be everyone’s goal? But achieving it requires government to add to its current education and awareness strategy, to enact the drafted legislation most likely to protect children, and ultimately, to capacitate the child protection system.
Does it have the motivation and political will to do so? Only time will tell.
First published in the Daily Maverick: 19.02.2025
