Ian Cameron: We know their names. Why are we still keeping the register closed?

Ian Cameron has spent weeks telling the stories of murdered and abused women and children. Now he turns to the men our courts have convicted. South Africa has a National Register for Sex Offenders. Ordinary people cannot freely search it. Government promised reform. It has not arrived. Cameron sets out what a public register should show, what it must never reveal, and why it cannot fix a failing justice system alone. So why are we still waiting?.By Ian Cameron*.Over the past few weeks, I have deliberately told the stories of women and children whose lives were changed, or ended, by violence. Some of their families I have walked a road with for years, and the outcomes have been very different.Siphokazi Booi was murdered. Sithobele Qebe was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.Nadia Lotz was killed in 2023. Charles Appolis was convicted and sentenced this year to 22 years.Christine Robinson was raped and murdered at her lodge. Andrea Imbayarwo, also known as Andrew Ndlovu, disappeared for six years before police finally caught him. He was convicted of her rape and murder and is serving two life sentences.Janelle Laattoe survived, but then had to fight a criminal justice system that repeatedly failed her. Her original case collapsed, her docket disappeared and years passed. She kept going. Ryan Rhode eventually pleaded guilty to charges involving three women and was sentenced last month.Other families are still waiting. Four-year-old Mia Botha was murdered in Paarl in 2022 and, more than four years later, nobody has been convicted of killing her. Werner de Jager was charged with the murder of his wife, Reverend Liezel de Jager, but died in custody before the case went to trial. Charlene Pretorius’s husband is currently standing trial for her murder. He remains an accused person and the court must determine whether the State has proved its case.Then there is Bokgabo Poo. Ntokozo Zikhali was prosecuted for the four-year-old’s murder but acquitted after critical evidence was ruled inadmissible. He was, however, separately convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl and sentenced to life imprisonment.I make these distinctions deliberately. I will not call someone a convicted offender because he has been arrested or charged. If a case is still before court, I will say so. If somebody was acquitted, I will say so. But where a court has convicted someone, we should be equally willing to say exactly what he did.Not every case I have shared involved a sexual offence. Some involved murder, domestic violence or other serious violence against women and children. I have shared them because these are real people and real families living with the consequences of violent crime and, too often, a criminal justice system that takes years to give them an answer.For weeks I have spoken about the victims. Now I want to talk about the people our courts have convicted.113 RAPE CONVICTIONS, 12 MURDERS AND 67 LIFE SENTENCESTake just ten convicted offenders.Nkosinathi Emmanuel Phakathi was convicted on 90 counts of rape. Mortimer Saunders was convicted of raping and murdering three-year-old Courtney Pieters. Nicholas Ninow was convicted of raping a seven-year-old girl. Luyanda Botha was convicted on two counts of rape and of murdering Uyinene Mrwetyana. Sifiso Mkhwanazi was convicted of six rapes and six murders.Leano Vergotine was convicted on five counts of rape involving children. Arthur Wheeler had two rape convictions, including the rape and murder of eight-year-old Daniel Jamneck. Phethe Simiao was convicted of raping and murdering six-year-old Amantle Samane. Simphiwe Xolani Mkhwanazi had four rape convictions and a murder conviction. Sifiso George Sibiloane was convicted of raping and murdering six-year-old Princess Rossouw.Between these ten offenders alone, our courts recorded at least 113 rape convictions, 12 murder convictions and 67 life sentences.I am deliberately using convictions, not allegations, original charge sheets or estimates of what these offenders may have done. And this is only ten offenders.South Africa already has a National Register for Sex Offenders. At the last official figure I could verify, in March 2025, it contained 32,557 convicted sex offenders, with another 10,456 potential entries pending before courts.The register is not completely inaccessible, but the current system is cumbersome. Section 42 allows someone to apply to the Registrar to establish whether another person appears on it, provided certain requirements are met. That is very different from a parent being able to establish easily whether someone they are considering allowing into their child’s life has been convicted of a serious sexual offence.The law also makes unauthorised publication of information obtained from the register a criminal offence, with a potential sentence of up to three years.Government knows the system needs reform. Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi committed to changes in 2025. On 29 September this year, her Deputy Minister told Parliament that the Department was still working on amendments to allow greater public access.Why are we still waiting?I am not proposing that government publish people’s home addresses, ID numbers, telephone numbers or information that could identify victims. That would be irresponsible.What people need is far more basic: a verified identity, an identifying photograph, the qualifying convictions, sentence and current legal status. There must obviously be a proper mechanism to correct a record when an appeal succeeds or someone’s legal status changes.WE CANNOT OUTSOURCE EVERY DECISION ABOUT OUR SAFETY TO THE STATEPolice generally enter the picture after a crime has happened. A mother deciding whom she trusts around her child does not have a detective standing next to her. Neither does a woman deciding whether someone is safe to bring into her home.We need to know who we are protecting ourselves and our children from. Giving people access to verified conviction information is not vigilantism. Nobody should harass an offender or take the law into their own hands. This is about allowing people to make informed decisions about their own safety and the safety of their families.Last week President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the country about the killing of women in Ekurhuleni. He acknowledged that government “must do better” and spoke about cases collapsing because dockets disappear or investigations are badly handled.Mr President, here is something your government could have dealt with already. The register exists. The convictions exist. Your own Justice Minister has accepted that the legislation needs to change. South Africans have heard enough speeches about how seriously government takes violence against women and children. Finish the reform you have already promised.There is a separate issue playing out inside SAPS itself. Suspended Deputy National Police Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya is before court facing charges including rape, trafficking in persons and the alleged sexual grooming of a 16-year-old girl. He has not been convicted. These are allegations and the court must determine them.I mention his case for a different reason. When allegations of that gravity are being tested against one of the country’s most senior police officers, it becomes very difficult to treat sexual violence, safeguarding and institutional integrity as abstract policy discussions.Opening the register will not solve the wider criminal justice problem either. A public database cannot investigate a rape, process DNA, find a missing docket, interview witnesses, analyse a phone or put a proper case before a prosecutor. We still need capable FCS detectives, forensic laboratories that work, prosecution-guided investigations, manageable detective caseloads and witnesses who are safe enough to testify.If the investigation fails, there is no conviction. Without a conviction, a register cannot protect anyone.Leano Vergotine’s case shows another part of the problem. He had already served a sentence for raping a minor. According to the NPA, he began offending again within six months of being released on parole. This year the High Court imposed five life sentences, declared him a dangerous criminal and ordered indefinite imprisonment subject to future judicial scrutiny.That is where I stand on the worst offenders. If you rape and murder a child, I do not believe you should ever walk free again.For too long we have learnt the names of murdered women and children after it was too late to protect them. We should know the names and faces of the people our courts have convicted as well.Protect victims’ identities. Keep the information accurate. Respect successful appeals and the decisions of our courts. But give ordinary South Africans the information they need to protect themselves and their children..Read more:.Ian Cameron: Mr President, if GBV is a national disaster, show us what changed.Another baby dead, another mother allegedly raped: South Africa must stop keeping the public in the dark about convicted sex offendersA four-month-old baby has been found buried in a shallow grave near the Hennops River in Gauteng, while police are searching for a pastor accused of raping the child's 43-year-old mother.According to SAPS, the woman had accompanied the pastor and his wife to the area for a religious ritual. The pastor allegedly raped and restrained her while his wife remained with the baby. The mother managed to escape and seek help at a nearby construction site.Police subsequently located the pastor's 24-year-old wife, who reportedly led investigators to the baby's body. A case involving kidnapping, rape and murder is under investigation.A mother has survived an alleged sexual assault and lost her four-month-old baby. She deserves protection, proper support and an investigation capable of establishing exactly what happened. My condolences go to her and her family.SAPS must urgently locate the wanted man, establish the cause of the child's death, preserve the forensic evidence and ensure that the investigation is handled by experienced detectives working closely with prosecutors.I want to be clear that we do not know whether the wanted pastor has any previous sexual-offence convictions or appears on the National Register for Sex Offenders. Nothing presently establishes that he does.But the case raises a broader question about the information available to ordinary South Africans when deciding whom to trust around themselves and their children.We know that some convicted sexual offenders commit further offences after serving their sentences.Leano Vergotine is one such example. He had previously served a sentence for raping a minor. According to the National Prosecuting Authority, he began offending again within six months of his release on parole. He was subsequently convicted of five further rapes and other child sexual offences, received five life sentences and was declared a dangerous criminal.Then consider other offenders whose convictions are already public.Nicholas Ninow was convicted of raping a seven-year-old girl in a Pretoria restaurant bathroom and sentenced to life imprisonment.Ntokozo Zikhali pleaded guilty to raping a nine-year-old girl and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was separately acquitted in the Bokgabo Poo murder prosecution.Nkosinathi Emmanuel Phakathi was convicted on 90 counts of rape, including offences against children, and received 42 life sentences.Mortimer Saunders was convicted of raping and murdering three-year-old Courtney Pieters.These are not allegations. These are people whose guilt was established in court. South Africa already has a National Register for Sex Offenders. At the last official figure I could verify, it contained more than 32,000 convicted offenders. The law provides limited, conditional access, but ordinary South Africans cannot freely search the register.Government has acknowledged that legislative reform is needed, yet the promised changes remain unfinished.I am calling for lawful public access to verified identities, identifying photographs, qualifying convictions, sentences and current legal status, with safeguards to protect victims and correct inaccurate information.A parent should not have to search through years of newspaper reports to establish whether somebody they are considering trusting around their child has been convicted of a serious sexual offence.A public register cannot prevent every crime, particularly where a perpetrator has no previous conviction. It also cannot replace proper investigations, functioning forensic laboratories, capable FCS detectives or successful prosecutions.But where an offender has already been convicted, access to accurate information could help families recognise risks before another offence occurs.The Department of Justice must provide a firm timetable for the necessary legislative amendments. SAPS must also account for progress in the Gauteng investigation, including the search for the wanted pastor and the protection of the surviving mother.We cannot outsource every decision about our safety to the state. South Africans need the information necessary to make informed decisions about whom they trust..*Ian Cameron is chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Police.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. 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Ian Cameron: We know their names. Why are we still keeping the register closed?

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