By Anzio Jacobs and Aluta Sneke.
The reported arrest of a 16-year-old in Malmesbury in a case involving child sexual abuse material should disturb us for several reasons.
Somewhere, children were exploited to create that material. Now another child has allegedly become part of the chain through which it was accessed, possessed or distributed. This is what it looks like when the digital environment fails children at both ends.
Yet South Africa’s response to online harm still relies too heavily on intervention after the damage has been done, or on proposals to keep children away from digital platforms altogether. Neither approach confronts the harder question: why have we allowed platforms used daily by children to remain so poorly designed for their safety?
Digital platforms did not create South Africa’s crisis of violence against children. But they extend its reach, accelerate its spread and allow individual acts of exploitation to be viewed, shared and repeated long after the original abuse occurred.
Arrests and prosecutions are therefore necessary, but they are the last line of defence. By the time law enforcement becomes involved, a child may already have been exploited, groomed, threatened or exposed to deeply harmful material. Other children may already have shared or engaged with that content, sometimes without fully understanding the legal, psychological and human consequences.
A serious child-protection system must intervene much earlier.
The debate about age restrictions on social media reflects a legitimate concern. Children should not have unrestricted access to platforms and features that expose them to adult strangers, exploitative algorithms or harmful content. But age-gating and blanket bans cannot become substitutes for effective child protection.
For children, the distinction between “online” and “real life” has largely disappeared. Digital spaces are where they learn, play, build friendships, express themselves and access opportunities. Telling them simply to disconnect is neither realistic nor equitable. The objective must be safe participation, not exclusion.
Restrictions may reassure adults that decisive action is being taken. Yet, without safer platform design, meaningful age-assurance measures, digital literacy and accessible reporting systems, they risk becoming little more than safety theatre: visible and politically attractive, but poorly matched to how children use technology.
Children themselves tell us that any restrictions can be circumvented. When this happens, they may migrate to less visible platforms and private spaces where parents, educators and regulators have even less understanding of what they are doing and who they are interacting with.
Across the African Children’s Summit, the Digital Justice Summit and consultations convened by the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, children have delivered a consistent message: they want protection from exploitation and harmful content, but they do not want decisions about their digital lives made without them. “Nothing about us without us” must be more than a slogan.
Many children have developed their own strategies for blocking unwanted contact, identifying suspicious behaviour and helping friends navigate harmful experiences. Their knowledge does not replace adult responsibility, but it can help policymakers and technology companies understand how risks emerge in practice.
Rather than measuring progress by the number of restrictions announced or arrests made, South Africa should judge its response against four practical questions.
First, can children and families report online harm quickly, confidentially and in language they understand, and receive meaningful support when they do?
Parents, teachers, social workers and community leaders need practical guidance on recognising grooming, coercion, harmful content and changes in children’s online behaviour. Reporting systems must be visible, accessible and connected to appropriate psychological, social and legal support.
Second, are technology companies required to build child safety into their products? Safety cannot be an optional feature buried in account settings. Platforms should introduce child-safe privacy defaults, limit unsolicited adult-to-child contact, provide clear reporting and escalation systems, and assess the risks to children before launching new features. They should also report transparently on how they detect and address grooming, exploitation and child sexual abuse material.
Third, are children learning meaningful digital literacy before harm occurs? Children need age-appropriate education about consent, privacy, manipulation, sexual content, reporting mechanisms, peer pressure and the permanent consequences of creating or sharing harmful material.
Fourth, are children helping to shape the policies and technologies intended to protect them?
Policies developed without understanding children’s actual behaviour are likely to fail. Participation does not mean transferring responsibility to children; it means designing better interventions by listening to those who experience the digital environment directly.
Over the years, we have hosted the Digital Justice Summit to hear directly from children and be guided by them in intensifying efforts to keep them safe online. This year, we will once again host the Summit from 4 to 6 December, as a hybrid event held in Stellenbosch. Keep an eye on our website and social media for updates on how you can be part of the solution. Children have already told us what they need. They want to be safe online, but they also want to learn, connect, create and participate. They should not have to choose between protection and inclusion.
For this reason, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund in partnership with Jelly Beanz convened a high-level ‘Digital violence against children’ stakeholder engagement. We asked government, technology companies, researchers and child-protection practitioners to move beyond general commitments and identify concrete responsibilities, interventions and timelines, particularly in addressing child-on-child online harm and the psychological and social factors that drive it.
An arrest may interrupt one chain of harm. It will not repair the system that allowed that harm to develop. That is the work South Africa can no longer postpone.
Anzio Jacobs and Aluta Sneke , Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund.