Heather Hogan
Charlene Smith has received the 1999 South African Courageous Journalism Award for her tireless war against rape and her fight for justice for rape survivors. She shares first place with Sunday Times reporter Mzilikazi wa Afrika.
The award is made annually by the Ruth First Memorial Trust and honours journalism that is “bold, independent, investigative, politically courageous, personally engaged and which raises as many social questions as it answers”.
Smith was raped at her home in April and shared her trauma with Mail & Guardian readers in a two-page account of both the attack and the dismal response from private and public health workers to her frantic attempt to get anti-retroviral drugs to minimise her chances of contracting HIV.
In the months that followed, she not only continued to write about the horrors of rape in South Africa, but campaigned publicly to improve the treatment of rape survivors by authorities in South Africa.
Smith has given of herself repeatedly, counselling dozens of raped and abused women. She has assisted their partners and children when necessary, visited hospitals and spent many hours raising public awareness.
Drawing from her own experience, she conducted extensive radio and TV interviews locally and abroad, and continues to write on rape and HIV.
After addressing the South African Medical Association, calling for free HIV treatment for rape survivors and training for doctors, her hard work has paid off. The association is currently putting a rape protocol together which it intends to submit to the government. This protocol is the first of its kind in the world.
Taking part in public protests about the unavailability of anti-retrovirals in state hospitals, Smith has given rape survivors a voice. Pharmaceutical companies have launched two $100-million studies into the availability of the drugs.
Following the negative publicity Smith gave the Netcare group after her rape, it has opened five rape clinics and now provides anti-retroviral starter packs to survivors.
The Johannesburg district surgeon’s offices are being revamped thanks to Smith’s public appeals for assistance.
She has addressed groups across the country, raising public awareness with groups as diverse as primary schools, sex workers and medical schools. She advised the Durban city police on how to better train their officers to deal with rape.
Smith wrote the brochures for the major anti-rape campaign launched in July by Clicks, Diskom and Musica stores.
Together with Nathabiseng Mogale, she played an invaluable part in the launch of a one million signature petition by People Opposed to Women Abuse, calling for free anti-retrovirals, better pay for police and prosecutors and a victims’ charter.
The judges for the award said: “She showed great personal courage. Even though the sheer act of writing about her rape was a deeply physical act and deeply troubling for a reader to read, she has held on to the subject like a bull terrier and did not let go.”
Wa Afrika was honoured for his undercover investigation which revealed that home affairs Director General Albert Mokoena was issuing false identity documents to non- South Africans and running a private business from his office. Mokoena now faces eight charges of misusing his position.