The horror stories have become platitudes — a nine-month-old baby allegedly gang-raped, a pensioner raped by her grandson — to make the interminable list lend weight to perceptions of South Africa as a world rape capital.
In the Western Cape, police statistics show that rape was the only contact-crime category to increase, by 8,2%, from 2003/04 to 2004/05.
”The increase in this crime in the west metropole [14,2%], Boland [7,3%] and the Southern Cape [14,3%] resulted in the increase in the provincial figure of the crime,” reads the Western Cape police service’s 2004/05 annual report.
Five police stations in the region accounted for nearly a fifth of all reported cases — Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Kuils River, Worcester and Gugulethu.
Against the backdrop of escalating incidents of reported rape, an anti-rape strategy was formulated and recently signed into effect by provincial minister for community safety Leonard Ramatlakane.
”The anti-rape strategy is beautiful because it brings NGOs and government departments together, and the key to the strategy is that it recognises the role the NGO sector plays. It is the first integrated strategy in the country and has been copied by other provinces,” said Ramatlakane.
The strategy takes a forward-looking approach to terminology, and rape is defined to include all acts of sexual assault.
The strategy acknowledges research that reported cases only represent the tip of the iceberg of sexual assault, noting data from the Medical Research Council (MRC), which extrapolates that only one in six report cases to authorities.
”We have a problem and I’m saying it is a serious societal problem. Why must people be raped? Why must women be raped when we live in a normal society that has principles, morals and values?” asked Ramatlakane.
However, he demurred in conceding to the one-in-six and other statistical propositions, saying this was not empirically tested.
”Whether it’s one, it’s a problem. Whether it’s two, it’s a problem. But the dramatisation of using numbers, does it help?”
Data from Dr Naeemah Abrahams at the MRC’s gender and health research unit showed that in 2003/04 there were more than 50 000 rapes reported to police in South Africa.
This meant 144 cases a day were reported to police, with the Western Cape consistently exceeding the national average since 1994.
If one were to subscribe to the one-in-six theorem, the actual number of cases would be in the region of 315 000.
Related studies of adolescent sexuality have found that 15% to 28% of girls reported forced sexual initiation, with an MRC survey in Cape Town finding that 15% of men reported having raped or attempted to rape their wife or girlfriend.
Ramatlakane felt campaigns, such as the province’s breaking-the-silence initiative, were bearing fruit and more people were coming forward and reporting cases.
He suggested a downward trend could be felt as a ”bottleneck of cases” was processed.
Asked if the strategy, which has a vision of the Western Cape as a rape-free society, was aiming too high, Ramatlakane said the strategy was a destination and society had ”a long road to travel”.
Samantha Waterhouse, advocacy manager at children’s rights organisation Rapcan, said they were happy the strategy was in place.
”What we want to see it achieve primarily is greater coordination between government departments and civil society. I think, important, is to see strategic input into departmental projects from civil society.”
Waterhouse said that in the past a lot of the anti-rape activities haven’t addressed the causes and consequences of rape, ”and now what we want to see is more resources put into those complex factors that cause rape”.
She said there was a challenge for everyone to do more than is currently being done, with the anti-rape strategy presenting this opportunity. — Sapa