In 2002 the Children's Rights Project at the Community Law Centre commissioned research on the incidence of children committing sexual offences in South Africa. A research report was completed that analyses some custody, arrest and reporting trends in relation to children and sexual offences. When SAYStOP undertook to research potential management systems for repeat sex offenders, the discussion document appearing in this publication, it was decided to include the 2002 research and have one publication covering both pieces of research as both contain information pertinent to the issue of management of young sex offenders in South Africa.

As South Africa moves through the process of transition, the laws that regulate the way in which children are processed through the juvenile justice system has come under systematic and comprehensive review. Little effort has thus far been made to incorporate the views of children as they experience the various stages of the legal process. Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which South Africa ratified in 1995, requires that States assure the child the right to express its views in all matters that affect it. In an effort to bring these voices into the discourse of law reform, children of different ages and from broadly different circumstances were provided with the opportunity to express how they themselves experience the criminal justice system. This publication is the result of extensive consultations with children, the words are theirs and the voices are clear.

During 1995, a draft Child Care Amendment Bill, aimed at amending critical and problematic areas of current child care and protection legislation, was circulated by the Department of Welfare and Population Development. This Bill was criticized from various sectors for its piece-meal approach to law reform. A clear need existed to "Africanize" child care and protection mechanisms and to achieve both uniformity of vision and compliance with international norms and standards, not to mention ensuring that existing legislation complied with the provisions in the South African Constitution. The Amendment became law in 1996, just prior to which a conference was organised to ensure that the process of reform did not stagnate and to increase awareness of the need for coherent and comprehensive change in child care and protection laws. This publication is an account of the speeches, proceedings, and extensive recommendations that emerged out of the conference.