Most rape victims are women, and that male victims are often erased from collective recognition. Photo: Rajesh Jantilal/AFP
Fewer survivors of rape are reporting the crime and some have resorted to accepting “blood money” because “systemic patriarchy” and a lack of concern by nurses, police officers and court officials results in cases dragging on for years.
Simple but crucial police investigative work such as visiting the crime scene to collect semen and fingerprints, which can be run through the home affairs department’s database to identify suspects, is being neglected, allowing often known perpetrators to walk the streets freely.
This is the shocking reality non-profit organisations experience while assisting the small percentage of rape survivors who do report the crime.
According to the latest South African Police Service (SAPS) crime statistics, 10 512 rapes were reported in the first three months of 2023 alone, but this is just a tip of the iceberg given that only one in nine rapes are actually reported.
Fiona Nicholson, who founded the Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme in Limpopo, said it feels like she is banging her head against a brick wall when she raises concerns about the plight of rape victims, and begs the government to make use of existing legislation that will add clout to police investigations.
Nicholson escalated her concerns to the Presidential Summit on Gender-based Violence and Femicide and to a raft of officials in the police service, the department of justice and the department for women, youth and the disabled in November 2022. But she has not received any meaningful response to her questions.
“The Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Act 6 of 2010 provides for the matching of fingerprints to any database in the country, with specific reference to the department of home affairs,” she said.
“It is now 12 years later and still they are ignoring this provision and match fingerprints only to their own database. As that database consists only of prints of known criminals, or suspects, this is totally inadequate. If a rapist is a first offender, or has not been apprehended before, they have no chance of identifying him/her.
“Home affairs, on the other hand, has the prints of almost everyone legally in the country. I have questioned this on numerous occasions, and even had to deliver a copy of the Government Gazette to the head of forensics in Thohoyandou, because he would not believe the Act existed.
“A member of Johannesburg Forensics also confirmed no knowledge of the Act but said they ‘occasionally do use home affairs for high-profile cases’. Clearly this situation must be remedied without further delay.”
Nicholson said she also had anecdotal evidence that the police were being encouraged not to open rape cases if they wanted to be promoted.
“We realised [many years ago] that SAPS officers were trying to avoid opening cases of rape. A case of child rape, for example, had been registered as ‘common assault’. When challenged as to the reasons the station commander explained it was because ‘they want promotion’,” Nicholson said.
She said a station commander at Musina police station had instructed that no rape case could be opened without his permission.
“His strategy was to meet the respective families to ‘negotiate a settlement’ — in one instance it was reported that the perpetrator’s family paid for the assault with a goat,” Nicholson said.
She said it was rare for police to visit the scene of a rape to gather evidence such as semen and fingerprints.
Marching away: Rape survivors are traumatised again by their experience at the hands of the justice system. (Brenton Geach/Gallo Images)
“Following a case of rape … it took eight days of complaining before forensics attended the scene, even though the victim had reported that the rapist climbed through the window and left semen stains on her bed,” Nicholson said.
The police were also not making use of K9 units to catch rapists.
“The vast majority of perpetrators escape on foot, and yet despite SAPS boasting one of the best K9 units in the world, I have yet to hear of them ever being used to track a rapist. This is surely a glaring omission, which could be remedied relatively easily,” Nicholson said.
Greater Rape Intervention Programme (Grip) founder Barbara Kenyon described the criminal justice system’s handling of rape as a “circus” that punishes victims with secondary trauma that often leads to them withdrawing cases or accepting blood money from those who committed the crime.
“The community are currently reluctant to report rape due to the lack of interest shown by all departments, not only SAPS. If evidence is collected in time [which happens rarely], it is either not sent to the forensic labs and if sent, these labs — there are only two in the country — take on average four to five years to process evidence,” she said.
The department of health, in collaboration with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), have established specialised Thuthuzela Centres where they create their own protocol, but Kenyon said not all women have access to these centres.
Kenyon recounted how she recently took a survivor to a hospital for a forensic examination and access to post-exposure prophylaxis and sexually transmitted disease treatment.
“They would not examine her unless she reported to the SAPS first. A survivor may choose by law to report to the police or not and has the right to be examined at the hospital and not have to make out a case. Incidentally, she was sexually assaulted overseas, so there was no point in getting the SAPS involved,” she said.
“The hospital refused to help her. Also the department of health, in their wisdom, has male forensic nurses. How bizarre. And they are only available during office hours. NPOs [nonprofit organisations] are not welcomed. The department of social development does not get involved with gender-based violence survivors other than funding
shelters, which are funded mostly for salaries of the social workers. Other costs are minimum.”
Kenyon said the NPA should limit its involvement to strengthening prosecutions.
“Our court roll has kids waiting five years for their cases and [they] have to appear time and time again for cases to be just postponed. The department of justice currently lets rapists who rape minors off on ‘warnings’. It’s a circus of misuse of justice and is affecting so many families in such a negative way that most community members would rather not go through this secondary trauma,” she said.
Kenyon added that although there are dedicated police and government officials, many are patriarchal or know the rapist.
“It is a crime the SAPS do not like to handle because, if they get invested and the case is thrown out of court — or they have to appear so many times in court and then it is postponed for over four years — it wastes their time and there are very few convictions. It is a thankless investigation,” she said.
Grip’s chief executive, Taryn Lokotsch, said the organisation had noticed a slight decrease in the numbers of cases reported.
“We believe people are too nervous to report their cases or that cases are not taken seriously at police stations,” she said.
Many cases involve known perpetrators and this places survivors at risk if they report the crime because they often depend on their abuser for money, shelter and food, Lokotsch explained.
“The community is starting to lose faith in the justice system … What is the point of reporting if nothing happens anyway? It takes some time to get protection orders, especially over holiday periods when the court is closed; first offenders tend to be released on bail … or even just reprimanded with a warning, a recent trend which is concerning,” she said.
“According to our most recent court stats, the majority of cases are postponed and cases literally take three to five years most times to finalise. The conviction rate we see is only about 5% of cases that get to court, which is scary.
“In some cases, statutory rapists are given warnings and released until their court dates, sometimes months away … We have recently seen a few cases end with mediation — for a criminal offence. This is something we do not support but if your case is dragging on for years and you as a survivor have nothing, it must be tempting to accept X amount of money to withdraw your case,” Lokotsch said.
“That way … the trauma of being in and out of court, doubting whether or not your rapist will be convicted, finally ends.”The SAPS, the NPA, the department of justice and the department for women, youth and the disabled had not responded to questions from the Mail & Guardian by the time of publication. The presidency referred the M&G to the SAPS.