Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) always urges media to adequately protect the identities of child victims and/or witnesses of abuse when it is not in their best interests to be identified.  The media, being a powerful tool that plays an important and influential role in society, has the responsibility to demonstrate strong journalism ethics particularly when reporting on vulnerable groups including children. However, such was not the case with the reporting of IOL, The Star and The Citizen of a story where an abused child was indirectly identified through his parents and deceased sister. The stories, for which MMA gives a MAD,[1] report on two children , a five–year-old boy and three-year old girl who were allegedly abused by their biological mother and stepfather, resulting in the death of the three-year-old who died from the assault.

The first story entitled, “Couple plead not guilty to child abuse” (The Star, 31/10/2017, p.2) describes how the three-year-old child died a year ago after she and her brother were allegedly severely assaulted “over several months” by their parents. The couple reportedly claimed, “they were not to blame [for the child’s death].” While the article conceals the identity of the 5-year-old boy, it names and provides pictures of his deceased sister as well the accused couple. By doing this, The Star indirectly identified the child.

“WATCH: ‘[name withheld] had bruises to her private parts’” (IOL, 31/10/2017) also reports on the trial where a doctor and paramedic who attended to the deceased child and a teacher all testified in court.  Although the journalist states that the five-year-old old “may not be identified”, yet again he is indirectly identified through the naming and picturing of his sister and the naming of the parents  who are also shown in a video where their faces were clearly visible.

The third article, “Child ‘screamed as if in awful pain’” (The Citizen, 02/11/2017, p.7) recounts the testimony given in the High Court in Pretoria by a neighbour who also affirmed that the deceased child and her brother were abused by their parents. The article also reports of another child, a 16-year-old who also suffered abuse at the hands of the couple. The child, who was 14 at the time of the abuse, is reported to have testified “behind closed doors”.  In this instance, the five-year-old is also indirectly identified through the couple and his sister.

Statistics on abused children in South Africa from a report by the Children’s Institute suggest that “one in three children are the victims of sexual violence and physical abuse.”[2] With such high rates of abuse against children,  MMA encourages journalists to report more on the issue so as to create more awareness. However, we urge journalists and editors to sufficiently protect the children involved in such stories in order to protect them from potential harm. Since the surviving child in the story is both a victim and a potential witness at criminal proceedings, revealing his identity indirectly by the above mentioned media contravened the law, codes of practice and violated the surviving child’s rights to privacy by revealing what happened to him along with his identity in the public domain.

The Star and IOL both  contravened their own Press Code[3] which states in Sections 3.1 and 3.3 respectively, “The statutory restrictions on the naming or identification of children shall be considered” and ”The permission of the parent or guardian of any child shall be sought in all cases where the identity of the child is to be disclosed.”

Section 154 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Act[4] was also flouted by all the three media. The Section warns against the identification of children who are accused of crimes or are witnesses at criminal proceedings. “No person shall publish in any manner whatever information which reveals or may reveal the identity of the accused under the age of 18 years or of a witness at criminal proceedings who is under the age of 18 years,” the Section states.

MMA’s Editorial Guidelines and Principles for Reporting on Children in the Media[5] produced with input from children, journalists and editors, encourage journalists to exercise caution especially when reporting on children involved in legal proceedings. Section 7 of the Guidelines outlines the following, “Children involved in legal proceedings need even more protection, and are at greater risk, so make sure to always protect their identity.”

While MMA commends journalists for highlighting incidences of child abuse, we emphasise the need to always put the child’s best interest first when reporting on children. We implore The Citizen, IOL and The Star to consistently be cautious when reporting issues of this nature. Since the article still appears on IOL’s website, we request IOL to take the necessary steps to avoid further identifying the child by concealing the identities of the couple and the identity of the deceased child and be transparent about this process to its audiences in order to highlight the need around the necessity to protect children in these instances.

We also hope that caution will be exercised by other media to not indirectly identify the child in subsequent reporting.

We look forward to reading more stories by the aforementioned media that are more sensitive towards children who are victims of abuse.

By Jacques Ndong

[1] A MAD refers to an article where the rights and welfare of children have been compromised through irresponsible media coverage

[2]http://www.ci.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/367/publication/2017/Child_Abuse_Tracking_Study_Report.pdf

[3] http://www.presscouncil.org.za/Files/PCSA%20Constitution%20Document_Sept2012_Concept_Final.pdf

[4] http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1977-051.pdf

[5] See MMA’s Editorial Guidelines and Principles for Reporting on Children in the Media developed with the input of journalism and child experts: