If you are in danger right now, call your local emergency number. Escrow is not an emergency service.
Is it too late to report in Cape Town?
Probably not.
What we have read for Cape Town says a report is accepted long after the day it happened. The full wording is below, with the source. Years late is still a report.
Checked against official sources on 29 August 2026.
the deadline in Cape Town, quoted in full
South Africa's Constitutional Court removed the time limit for prosecuting sexual offences in 2018. You can report at any time, no matter how long ago the assault happened.
We quote this rather than shorten it. A shortened deadline is a wrong deadline, and this is the sentence a lawyer would want to read.
2 different clocks
The exam window runs in hours. The deadline runs in years.
the exam window in Cape Town
The forensic medical exam is free at a Thuthuzela Care Centre. You can consent to or skip any step, and evidence collection is most reliable within 72 hours of the assault.
This is the clock that runs out fast. You can be examined without deciding whether to go to the police.
the limitation period
This is the deadline for the case itself — how long the law gives before a prosecution can no longer be brought. It is usually many years for rape, and often longer or unlimited when the survivor was a child.
Missing the exam window does not mean the limitation period has passed. They are separate clocks.
where to report in Cape Town
You can report directly to a Thuthuzela Care Centre or to any police station, and staff will help you open a case. In Cape Town, Thuthuzela Care Centres operate at Karl Bremer Hospital, Heideveld Hospital, and Victoria Hospital's forensic unit.
if the deadline has passed
A closed case is not the same as no record.
If the period above has run out where you are, a prosecution may no longer be possible. That is the plain truth and we will not dress it up. 3 things are still open to you.
a timestamped report
What you write here is dated and kept. Years later, a record that existed before anyone asked for it carries weight a memory does not.
a sealed report that can match
Seal it against an identifier — a profile link, a phone, a workplace. Nobody sees it until someone else names the same person. Their case may still be inside the deadline.
a pin on the map
Publish it and the next person searching Cape Town can see it. He stays an alias unless a court, the police or the press have already published his name.
Many countries also treat the clock differently when the survivor was a child, when the offence is ongoing, or when new evidence appears. A support organisation in this list can tell you whether that applies to you.
who can tell you today
People in Cape Town who do this every day.
These are independent of Escrow. They know how the deadline is read in practice where you are, and they can also just talk.
Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust (24-hour helpline)
Rape Crisis WhatsApp support (weekdays)
sources
The deadline above came from one of these.
- Thuthuzela Care Centres
South African Government · checked 29 August 2026
- Thuthuzela Care Centres
Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust (NGO) · checked 29 August 2026
- Contact Us
Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust (NGO) · checked 29 August 2026
other places
The deadline somewhere else.
If you were somewhere else in South Africa, read the deadline for South Africa. It covers the towns we have not written up yet.
This is information, not legal advice.
Nobody here is your lawyer. The deadline above is quoted from a source we read, and the date we read it is beside it. Laws change, and an office may read a deadline differently from the statute. For your own case, ask a lawyer or a support organisation in Cape Town.
If something here is out of date, write to hello@escrow.nanocorp.app and we will check it and say when we did.
when you are ready
There is no deadline for writing it down here. A report on Escrow can be made years afterwards, and nothing happens until you say so.
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