By Lynnette Johns (IOL)
It is not psychiatric illness which make men commit heinous crimes like raping and killing little girls, but rather a lack of love and attention in their own childhoods.
Boys who grow up without male role models, who are not loved and do not learn empathy are more likely to abuse others, say child-rights activists.
The Western Cape is reeling after a spate of gruesome child killings in which the arrested men were the victims' neighbours or known to the family.
The SA Centre for Missing and Exploited Children says 2 000 children are murdered each year. Around 800-900 are reported missing each year, but the actual figure is probably much higher. Similarly, the annual figure of 5 000 reported cases of rape and sexual assault of children was "undoubtedly under-estimated", it said.
Child protection services estimate one in three girls and one in five boys suffers some form of sexual exploitation.
High-profile child murder cases that have made headlines include that of Annestacia Wiese, 11, who was found raped and murdered in the ceiling of her home in Woodlands, Mitchell's Plain in March. Her mother's boyfriend, Richard Engelbrecht, has been charged with her murder as well as that of five-year-old Rafique Hardien, who was killed three years ago.
Theunis Christiaan Olivier, 48, an illegal Zimbabwean immigrant who was staying in the backroom of a house next door to the holiday home of the Siebert family of Johannesburg, confessed to murdering six-year-old Steven Siebert. The little boy had been sexually abused and strangled. In his confession Olivier said he killed the boy as he did not want to be identified.
The question of what drives men to commit such crimes has been researched throughout the world, say SA child-rights activists. A common denominator among men who rape and kill little girls is that they lack empathy, do not know how to deal with their emotions and were not shown love when they were growing up.
Joan van Niekerk, national co-ordinator for Childline says international research has shown that children, especially boys, who grow up without love and a positive male role model are more at risk of developing abusive tendencies.
"If children grow up in a home where parents are not interested in them, for whatever reason, they do not learn to be empathetic or how to show love. Children need to learn empathy and be taught how to manage their impulses so that they understand how their behaviour affects others," Van Niekerk said.
She believes there are far too many children in bad situations and this does not bode well for the future.
"Children at risk become adults who have no concern about the impact their behaviour has on other people."
Van Niekerk says the men who rape little girls kill them and hide their bodies so that they are not identified.
"He could have regrets about killing the girl and will say it was done on impulse because he feared he would be discovered. Killing the little girl might therefore have not been the original intention but rather a very horrible act of self-preservation," said Van Niekerk.
Samantha Waterhouse, Rapcan's advocacy manager, says people assume child killers are scary monster rapists. "Society does not know how to deal with the 'nice' guy, who is friendly, functions well socially and often holds down a job, when he is identified as the abuser, rapist or killer."
Patric Solomons, director of child-rights organisation Molo Songololo, says often men who are found guilty of murdering and raping are misogynists and devoid of morals and values.
Solomons says boys are often taught strange "rites of passage" - a common one he has found is that boys are told they have to have sex or else they will develop cancer.
"Kids adopt these strange things and men perpetuate these messages. They believe they can have sex with whoever and whenever, and they don't care if it is a two-month old or a 90-year-old.
Organisations believe the government, religious communities and organisations need to develop programmes which will tackle inherent belief systems men have and teach men how to be men.
