In 1990, Judge Albie Sachs wrote of men who were freedom fighters by day and torturers by night, and those who were torturers by day and loving husbands and fathers at night.
In the same year in Montreal, Canada, a crazed man took women in a university hostel hostage and killed 14 of them. Horrified, Canadian men began the white-ribbon campaign that takes place globally on November 25 and launches 16 days of activism to combat violence against women and children.
Sexual violence is the fastest growing crime in the world and the one that is least likely to result in conviction. In New York, crime dropped by about 10% last year, except for rape, which increased by 5,6%. In Britain just over 5% of rapes are effectively prosecuted, in South Africa the figure is 1%.
In liberal Sweden, rapists get sentences as low as two years and rape survivors are often berated in court for the clothes they wear. No judge would dare do that in South Africa and we should celebrate that advance. No other country in the world has women who are as outspoken about rape or abuse as in South Africa and we should celebrate their refusal to remain silent.
But some have no choice. In Meadowlands, Soweto, Superintendent Nico Snyman says 90% of rape is against children aged 12 or younger. He says they arrest around two-thirds of perpetrators, but are lucky to get convictions in a fifth of the cases. The reason? Many parents are happy to accept as little as R50 to drop charges. That is one of the most common reasons for unsuccessful prosecutions in South Africa.
Home is the most dangerous place in the world for a woman or a child. We are in most danger from those we love.
The South African government has worked hard to end violence. But there is much to be done and some ”reforms” need to be revisited.
Before I was raped in 1999, the rapist phoned twice and threatened me. I reported it to the Parkview police who said there was nothing they could do. Ten days later I was raped and stabbed. Within five days the same police station would tell the then minister of safety and security, Steve Tshwete, that there was no such case — they had lost the file.
There is a national corruption line and a tollfree Aids helpline, but the crimes that cause the most fear and negative publicity for South Africa have nothing. There needs to be a national helpline for rape and domestic violence. Every trainee police officer and final-year psychology student needs to spend 160 hours manning those lines. The commanders of police stations and police units that deal with interpersonal crime, as well as the magistrates, need to spend no less than 30 hours a year taking calls on those lines.
We have to get some level of sensitivity, of knowledge about the laws and of services available, into the judicial and policing community. One-week or three-day training programmes don’t do it.
I believe that if we have a system in place where officials have to deal with these profoundly traumatised people, manipulative abusers and terrified children — on a person-to-caring-person basis — within three years we will see massive improvements in policing and prosecutions and a concurrent drop in these crimes.
Rapists and abusers do it because they can get away with it. We need to change that.
Meanwhile, a bulky Victims Rights Charter was presented to Parliament this week — four years in the drafting, it puts nearly all the onus on the survivor of violent crime to request services. Why, when the Constitution says we have a right to safety and privacy? Why shouldn’t magistrates, police officers, prosecutors and medical officers be at risk of losing their jobs if they treat those who experience crime with a lack of respect?
Half of all cases on the court roll are rape, according to Thoko Majokweni, who heads the sexual violence unit at the National Prosecuting Authority — except for Durban and Mdantsane where it is 60% of all cases. And yet there are more prosecutors for traffic offences.
Domestic violence is endemic. The fact that the domestic violence courts in Johannesburg are in the old pass courts is significant. In the pass courts ”offenders” were processed at an average rate of one every three minutes. In domestic violence courts, overwhelmed, poorly trained clerks rapidly issue protection orders.
In another incident, in September this year, I was assaulted and held hostage for six hours. A police hostage unit secured my release. The man was not arrested. Later, at the request of his family, I dropped the charges of kidnapping and assault against him, but reinstated them a week later after ongoing harassment.
Then I was served with a protection order in terms of the Domestic Violence Legislation of 1998. Protection orders are meant to protect an individual from a partner who is inflicting violence.
The protection order gave no evidence of actual or threatened violence on my part. Five of the six charges against me were related to his work. One clause said I should not reveal his conditions of employment.
The sixth clause said the criminal charges I had laid were ”malicious prosecution”. On the basis of those six clauses, which have nothing to do with the provisions of the Domestic Violence Legislation, a protection order was served on me.
It is clear that the clerk who issued the protection order did not read the accompanying papers, or does not understand the law, or both.
If the courts merely become places where papers are stamped, then an important law will become an ass.
Police, NGOs and prosecutors complain that a tit-for-tat situation has emerged, with perpetrators and victims taking out protection orders against each other.
Because the law is not rigorous it has become a tool of abuse. In a malicious divorce, for example, one party may claim that the other is abusing their children. In that instance investigators from the Family Advocates Office spring into action — it may take weeks for them to arrive at a finding, even if it is based on fact.
Protection orders were introduced because of persistent complaints that police officers fail to act in situations of domestic violence.
A protection order will not stop an unstable person from harming another — but effective police action can. I experienced difficulty in getting police to take the intimidation charge seriously, they clearly thought that threatening phone calls and visits were not a problem — it was the same view that they took five years ago before I was raped and stabbed.
I sent an e-mail to the kidnapper’s lawyer, copied to the perpetrator, asking for a written undertaking that he would leave me alone. I said that if he harmed me I would not be able to ”protect him from the media”.
He obtained a warrant of arrest for me, on the basis that I was ”refusing to protect him from the media”. A provision that has no basis in law.
The warrant says an individual must be arrested ”if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the complainant may suffer imminent harm as a result of the alleged breach of the protection order”. The apologetic police officers who arrested me clearly did not consider me a threat.
The person who assaulted and kidnapped me was never arrested.
Protection orders need more judicial rigour. Those who complain must furnish data about laying charges with the police, or medical examinations, details of incidents or witness affidavits and not vague allegations.
There is a rape every 26 seconds in South Africa. A woman is murdered by her partner every six days in Gauteng. The costs of ineffective policing and prosecution are too high.