”Maybe he didn’t rape me. Maybe he loved me,” said 15-year-old Amelia Borens (not her real name) as she explained to Cathy du Toit why she had taken over a week to report her rape.
”Amelia only reported her rape because her rapist did not continue their relationship,” Du Toit says .
A forensic nurse at the Camdeboo Victim Empowerment Centre in Graaff-Reinet, Du Toit says she frequently hears this story from young rape victims.
Apart from the fact that such late reporting makes it pointless to administer anti-retrovirals, Du Toit says these cases emphasise how many women in the Camdeboo are accustomed to abusive relationships.
Last month 45 women treated for injuries at the local Midlands hospital were identified by Du Toit as victims of domestic violence. Only two reported their abuse to the police. Du Toit asked support workers to visit some of the serial victims at their homes and invite them to come and see her about their problems.
”We have to be proactive,” she says. ”If we aren’t, the victims get trapped into an escalating spiral of abuse. One woman was assaulted 16 times in three years by her husband. This year he killed her. Another serial victim lost an eye recently. She now gets a disability grant. We have no idea how much the state pays out to victims of gender violence.”
Since October last year Du Toit has examined 44 rape victims and 97 women who were assaulted by men.
Most of these were women aged between 28 and 60 who were abused by their spouses. Alcohol plays a major role in spousal abuse, and many victims are drunk when they are treated at hospitals.
The manager of the Camdeboo Victim Empowerment project, Derek Luyt, says ”frontline workers generally deal only with reported cases. Most women and children suffer their abuse in silence.” — ECN