South Africa has the highest rates of rape in the world, according to Interpol. The National Prosecuting Authority tells us that 50% of all cases before South African courts are for rape, except in Durban and Mdantsane, where it’s 60%.

Prevalence

While the police hail a 5.4% drop in reported rapes a victory, Statistics South Africa says “the rape statistics released this week are not an accurate reflection of the reality of sexual violence in our country”. Lisa Vetten (Institute for Social and Economic Research) adds: “Every year the police assume that the number of incidents reported represents the number of actual rapes, yet research is clear that the majority of women don’t report rape to the police.… South Africa should emphasise ways to reduce the barriers to reporting rape and domestic violence rather than reducing the number of reports”. According to the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), only one in 13 rapes are reported. The Law Reform Commission estimates there are 1.7 million rapes a year but on average only 54 000 rape survivors lay charges each year.

Over half the women of Gauteng (51.2%) have experienced some form of violence (emotional, economic, physical or sexual) in their lifetime and 78.3% of men in the province admit to perpetrating some form of violence against women. One in three of the 4000 women questioned by the Community of Information, Empowerment and Transparency said they had been raped. A quarter of all the boys interviewed during a survey conducted among 1500 schoolchildren in Soweto said that “jackrolling”, a term for gang rape, was fun. More than 25% of South African men questioned in a survey admitted to raping someone; of those, nearly half said they had raped more than one person, according to the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Nearly three out of four men who admitted rape stated they had first forced a woman or girl into sex before the age of 20, and nearly one in ten admitted doing so before the age of 10. Of South African men who knew somebody who had been raped, 16% believed that the rape survivor had enjoyed the experience and had asked for it. Between 28% and 30% of adolescents reported that their first sexual encounter was forced.

Child and baby rape

South Africa has some of the highest incidences of child and baby rape in the world. The largest increase in attacks is against children under seven but sadly, many children are afraid to report an incident to the police because the abusers are often a family friend or relative.

Laying charges

Every time a rape survivor doesn’t lay a charge, he or she allows a rapist or rapists (75% of rape in South Africa is gang rape) to believe he or they can do it again and again. Rape survivors must do battle with police, doctors, psychologists and the courts to get the justice they deserve and protect the next woman or child.

 

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.rape.co.za
http://www.svri.org
www.enca.com (30 September 2015)
http://www.mrc.ac.za/
http://www.wits.ac.za/ (June 2015)

 

Revised by M Collins