Matatiele family wants justice following 6-year-old boy's rape

JOHANNESBURG - A family in Matatiele in the Eastern Cape wants justice after their six-year-old child was repeatedly raped, allegedly at a day care facility last year.

The incidents are alleged to have taken place around October 2024.

The country has seen nationwide demonstrations over the rape of a seven-year-old girl from the area, calling for action after the incident.

Eyewitness News spoke to the grandmother of the child, who is wrought with guilt over not seeing the signs of abuse earlier.

Guilt has consumed the grandmother, who wishes she had realised sooner that the child she was raising was being raped.

The rape allegedly occurred at the minor’s school and resulted in the child refusing to go to the institution, which is a few houses away from his home.

But the short distance added to the child’s fear as the suspect, who has since been arrested, was only a few meters away from the little boy.

After his persistent unusual behaviour, his guardian took him to a Thuthuzela centre, where she received news that altered the family’s reality.

"I got scared when I realised that the child was hurt. When the doctor examined him, he found that the rape didn’t only happen once but multiple times. Then we called the police and opened a case of rape."

According to the grandmother, the child would be beaten after the ordeal, in a guise to fool other staff members at the school that the child had been disciplined for missing class.