Both the Guinness Book of Records and Interpol say South Africa is the country with the highest rate of rapes, many of them against children, a conference in Cape Town heard on Friday.
Friday was the final day of the 25th anniversary conference of the Child Accident Prevention Foundation of Southern Africa.
”There are about 50 000 reported cases every year in South Africa, 50% of which are against children … The police’s child protection unit estimates that only 1 in 15 child rapes are reported, with about 160 000 rapes of under-18s. In 80% of the cases the perpetrator was a trusted adult … [but] we estimate 500 000 rapes occurred in South Africa [per year] as a minimum,” said Carol Bower of Resources Aimed at the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (Rapcan).
Bower said the volume and extent to which rapes occur is ”utterly overwhelming”.
She said the rates of abuse, South Africa’s political history, a deeply entrenched patriarchal society and lack of resources are all challenges that have to be addressed in a holistic manner.
”It is not coincidental that South Africa has high rates of rape, high rape homicide and the highest transmission of HIV
transmission,” Bower said.
She said primary prevention also critically needs a commitment and additional resources from the government, in order to provide the conditions that could prevent abuse and neglect of children.
”It’s true there is a gap between policy and reality, between what’s on paper and what’s done,” she said.
Using Atlantis in the Western Cape as a case study, a former researcher at the University of Cape Town’s Children’s Institute said it is almost impossible to establish the incidence of child sexual abuse because of inadequate data and different definitions of abuse.
”The record forms and accuracy of information was only as good as the input, with some for example not including the age of the victim or information about the perpetrator,” said Zareena Parker.
She said although 15% of the housing in Atlantis consisted of flats, about 25% of victims lived in these flats.
”Some of the perspectives interviewees shared of abuse were alcohol abuse, community violence, poverty and intimidation of victims and their families by perpetrators,” she said.
There was also a breaking down in service delivery through a lack of communication and coordination between service providers.
Earlier, inter-agency communication was highlighted by Prof Sir David Hall, professor of community paediatrics at the University of Sheffield, England.
”Inter-agency communication is the key … between paediatricians, social services and the police,” Hall said in reference to combating child abuse.
Hall showed horrific slides of incidents of abuse, including facial cigarette burns, a child hit with a hot poker, and another young boy whose penis was severely cut after it was tied with some sort of gut because of his bed-wetting.
Saying he wanted to end his lecture on a hopeful note, Hall highlighted two projects in the United Kingdom that are doing great work in helping to educate and inform communities to also take responsibility and stop abuse.
”It is not all doom and gloom … and all the individual issues are part of a wider global context that can be addressed from the bottom up,” he said. — Sapa