Cases of sexual violence against minors tend to increase throughout the country, as revealed by a report in the newspaper Sunday. These crimes are often committed by people close to the victims, who even share a parental relationship.

In fact, between January 2022 and March 2023, the Forensic Medicine department at Maputo Central Hospital registered 361 cases, 64 of which involved boys. In the first quarter of this year, 74 victims were treated, four of them boys.

On average, Mavalane General Hospital registers 30 cases of sexual violence per month, five of which are against children between the ages of zero and nine. In the first quarter of the year it recorded 15 cases of rape of girls aged between 12 and 16.

Between January and March 2023, 64 cases were recorded in Inhambane, and in the same period this year it rose to 86 cases of rape against minors.

In the district of Homoíne, an eight-year-old child was raped for several days by three young men. The accused surrounded the child whenever she came home from school, until she gave up studying for fear of meeting her rapists again. The child is receiving medical assistance.

In Sofala, in the first quarter of 2022, 60 cases were recorded, and this year, in the same period, 71 cases of rape against minors were recorded.

In the city of Beira, a seven-year-old boy was raped by a 43-year-old adult. The boy was reported missing by his family for some time. He was found a day later, bloodied and unable to walk properly. It was thought that he had been run over. The boy is receiving medical and psychological assistance at a hospital in Sofala.

In Manica, the authorities have already registered 97 complaints of child rape, and another 54 cases were reported in the first quarter of the year.

In Nampula there have been 303 cases of child rape. This year, 71 cases have been registered, 43 of them in the first quarter.

In 2022, according to the Attorney General's Office, 2610 cases were filed against crimes of sexual violation, an increase of 470 cases compared to 2021, when 2140 criminal cases were registered.

The newspaper we quote says that rapists are often people who are closely related to the victims, such as fathers, uncles, grandfathers and cousins. But this group also includes house tenants.

The tenants are identified as people who use the trick of gaining the sympathy of homeowners or neighbors to rape children and teenagers after three or four months. After committing the crimes, they leave the homes without a trace.

"We had many cases like this last year. Often it's a group of young people who rent a house, and one of them entices a girl and commits the crime," said Linha Munguambe, head of the Integrated Care Center for victims of violence at Mavalane General Hospital.

She called for reporting tenants to the neighborhood authorities, reducing the number of teenagers studying at night, and seeking help within 72 hours of the rape to prevent sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV.