The rape of our children is becoming an epidemic of horror.

At least 38 little girls were raped or sexually assaulted in the Peninsula in the first two weeks of this month - five of them at the weekend, including a nine-month-old baby and a two-year-old.

A total of 32 men have been arrested in connection with various attacks.

Police child protection unit head Jan Swart said the problem was reaching epidemic proportions.

The nine-month-old was attacked on Saturday afternoon after her parents and friends fell asleep after partying in their Kalkfontein home.

She is now in hospital for recontructive surgery.

Detectives arrested a 35-year-old man on Sunday in connection with the rape.

Swart said his unit was also investigating the home circumstances of the baby to determine whether her parents were fit to look after her.

In the second case at the weekend, a two-year-old from Du Noon, near Table View, was raped on Saturday.

She had apparently been lured away from a group of friends playing in the road in front of her mother's house.

Swart said the toddler had been rushed to Red Cross Children's Hospital in Rondebosch with severe injuries.

No arrests have been made.

Then on Sunday in the same area, a 14-year-old girl was also raped.

In Delft on Saturday night, an eight-year-old sent to the shop by her parents was dragged off the street and raped.

Elsewhere in Delft, a 13-year-old Eerste River girl was abducted and raped on Saturday.

Swart said that when attackers appeared in court, they often claimed they had been victims of child abuse themselves, which they argued should be seen as a mitigating circumstance.

But he said that it should be an aggravating circumstance, as the men should be fully aware of the pain they were causing.

Swart said most assailants in child sex attacks knew their victims and were either family or friends of the parents.

Of the 32 men arrested this month, most were known to the victims.

Poverty and grim living conditions, where families "lived on top of each other in dingy rooms, poor parenting and alcohol abuse contributed to child and baby rape", he said.

"But there is still no excuse for the cowardly deeds of adult men with a perverted sense of power who attack babies so young they have not even learned to walk yet."

According to Interpol, South Africa has the highest incidence of rape in the world. Latest police statistics show that children are the victims of 41% of all rapes and attempted rapes reported.

More than 15% of all reported rapes involve children under the age of 11.

A rape occurs in South Africa every 26 seconds.