In March 2025 it was reported that there’s at least 32500 names on the National Sex Offenders Register (NSOR). See : How big is the national sex offenders register? Here's one estimate and National Sex Offenders Register Reveals 32,557 Convicted Off. This has been confirmed by the Registrar of the Register at the Department of Justice.
Consider that to date only just over 10% of all teachers (there are just over 400000 teachers in total in South Africa) have been screened against the NSOR. However, this only accounts for the educators in public schools and does not account for those in private schools or those in all the NGO’s sports clubs, creches, ECD’s, church groups, etc.
This theoretically means that about 90% of our children are being taught or managed by people for whom we do not know whether their names are on the register. The management and organisers do not know their statuses, neither do the parents know (and they have the right to know).
This places the children in their care under extreme risk - which is exactly why the government has implemented the NRSO and NCPR so that employers can check the status of their staff and management as well as their volunteers.
Although there’s quite a backlog of unprocessed applications at the Department of Justice for applications for the NRSO, we are encouraging institutions to make their applications, (which is their legal obligation to do in any case), so that the DoJ and the NRSO departments are able to better gauge the capacities they need to put in place in order to meet the screening needs of all the institutions that have the care of children and the vulnerable, and to provide a reasonable (one month?) turnaround in the future.
So, the only way for you as employer or management to know whether any of your staff or volunteers’ names are on the Register, currently containing over 32500 names, is to formally apply.
Let us help you to do “the right thing” for the safety of the children in your care.