/ 23 November 2007

UKZN students in rape furore

A 21-year-old female student was raped at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) last week. The violation has left a woman scarred, and those who share Mabel Palmer residence — the scene of the attack — with her are traumatised. It was not the first rape on campus this year.

Riven by fear and anger, the university community on the Howard College campus is now festering with recrimination. Allegations of ”hidden political agendas” and an underlying racism behind the outrage being voiced are being thrown around alongside accusations that the university management was initially guilty of prevarication.

A perception that university response structures such as the Risk Management Services (RMS) security division and residence assistants are gender-insensitive and ill-equipped to deal with acts of gender-based violence means many cases go unreported.

”I know of eight cases of rape in the past four months which went unreported because the victims had no faith in RMS, the police or student housing,” said lecturer Lliane Loots, of the UKZN Gender-Based Violence Lobby Group. Other reasons included the victims’ cultural and religious backgrounds and the perceived familial and societal consequences.

Loots said that in all these cases that happened on campus, the perpetrators were known to the victims. ”In two cases the people were in a relationship, but had not had sex. In one case the female student was drunk and she blamed herself, which is a typical example of blame ownership.”

She believes the experiences of ”the young woman raped, in reporting it, is exactly the reason for women’s denialism”. The reaction time of campus security was 40 minutes and the lack of urgency from the police was even worse.

”At the hospital she had to fill in a form relating to the rape in the presence of a female police officer. Umbilo police station was contacted and the officer on duty couldn’t come out because there were no cars available. [Head of RMS investigations] Peter Korte’s offer to pick her up was refused because ‘police officers can’t travel in civilian cars’.

”Eventually the police arrived at 7.30am after their shift changed and a car was available. The rape happened at around 1.30am and she had to just sit there, with semen and blood all over her, for all that time,” said Loots.

She believes gender-based violence at UKZN is endemic. The lobby group was born, 18 months ago, from a domestic and gender violence course she was teaching. ”Students started coming to me after lectures and telling me what was going on in the residences on campus. We started going into the residences and what we found is so much more than what is being reported. This rape, the eight unreported cases — they’re just the tip of the iceberg,” she said.

It is generally accepted that one out of every nine rape cases is reported to the police in South Africa. South African Police Service crime statistics show that from April last year to March this year, there were 52 617 reported rape cases. About 30% of these will lead to convictions.

Gender-based attacks

Gender-based attacks seem common at the university, students say. Several interviewed by the Mail & Guardian confirmed an incident this year where two armed males attacked a female student at Florence Powell residence, as well as an armed attack at John Hughes residence. They say domestic violence is rife; reports include a female student being stabbed by her boyfriend and another being beaten with a kettle. A third was assaulted with a crowbar.

”A female student at Mabel Palmer was pulled out of the res[idence] by her hair, beaten by her boyfriend and shoved into his car. The RMS guy just waved them through the gates, even though she was still screaming,” said a third-year student who chose to remain anonymous.

In May this year, a female was allegedly gang-raped at UKZN’s Westville campus during an open day. The university public-relations department was unable to confirm to the M&G the status of that investigation.

Students believe that they are ”generally kept in the dark about these issues”, which tends to exacerbate the situation. ”It’s as if [management] want us to forget that these things happen. How can we? As a woman I am afraid to be on this campus,” said another third-year student.

Students have also complained that some RMS guards are susceptible to bribes of ”alcohol and cigarettes” in allowing males into female residences and on to campus. They have also alleged that some guards ”are sexually suggestive and even demand favours” when asked to accompany female students late at night across the large campus.

Thenjiwe Magwaza, director of the centre for gender studies at UKZN, believes this type of behaviour on the campus is mirroring a broader societal malaise. ”Like a lot of South Africans, sections of the student body have not fully grasped the constitutional rights of personal dignity and gender equality. In the university regulations we are sensitive to these issues, but like the Constitution, these things look great on paper, yet the practicalities are far from that.”

She added: ”My reading of it is that people coming into universities are bringing with them the values held by South African society at large — these are contra-values to the Constitution. With women becoming more empowered and independent, men feel that their power is being taken away from them and they retaliate in this repugnant way to reaffirm and reassert their identity.”

Magwaza will assist Ken McKay, an independent security expert heading a commission announced on Wednesday, in conducting an institutional review of all residences and general security at the university.

She feels university management must implement education and awareness programmes to ensure university regulations have a practical resonance among students, adding that the institution is in dire need of ”open, honest and frank communication between all of us: staff, students and the executive”.

Campus meetings

Magwaza’s view was echoed by Trevor Wills, the executive dean of students, at one of two extraordinary meetings held at Howard College this week.

In response to students’ claims that gender-based attacks could have been pre-empted if their security concerns had been addressed much earlier, Wills on Wednesday admitted that the university ”had failed to deliver the required level of support and protection for students” and that there had been an ”unfortunate number of cases over the past few years”.

”I believe that we must also examine the respect and dignity we afford each other and how we interact with each other,” he said.

Both Wills and Korte said that access control and monitoring systems were under review, as was the training of guards and residence assistants.

Students and academics conceded that there was a constructive shift in management’s position in Wednesday’s meeting when compared with another on Monday called by the deputy dean of students, Bheki Ngcobo.

Perhaps surprised by the emotional vehemence of those present, Ngcobo, the RMS representative and Sifiso Dludla, of student housing, could not respond to questions posed at the meeting, each citing ”lack of jurisdiction” and deferring to the other.

”If you can’t give answers to questions we have been raising all year, then who can? We demand to speak to the vice-chancellor [Malegapuru Makgoba]! We demand answers!” insisted the chanting, thumping crowd before attempting to blockade Ngcobo’s exit.

Ngcobo ‘was in no way manhandled, but he was confronted,” Wills told the M&G Online on Friday in response to media reports earlier in the week. Wednesday’s meeting ”generally was good to get feedback and to address the questions raised in the meeting on Monday with the students and staff”, he added.

The Student Representative Council (SRC), African National Congress Youth League and South African Students’ Congress have stated that Monday’s incident is indicative of the ”hijacking” of the outrage expressed in the aftermath of the rape by academics intent on pursuing their own political agenda — and of an underlying racism.

”Where were these academics when black South African females [the victim in the latest case was an American] were being raped? … This is an attempt by a certain group of academics who have been trying to prove that black management at the university is inadequate and ineffective. These people are racist,” said central SRC president Sanele Shabalala.

On whether he considered this a direct attack on Makgoba’s leadership, Shabalala said: ”It is an attempt to undermine and discredit the entire executive, but these people also have their targets.”

Shabalala said that student matters, including safety, fell under the jurisdiction of the SRC and that academics were out of order.

‘Disingenuous’

The history department’s Catherine Burns, who has been vociferous as students and academics have mobilised after the rape, considers such comments disingenuous.

”It’s not about the safety of students; the issue is the safety of all of us on this campus,” she said. ”Many of the academics the SRC are complaining about are actively involved in issues of gender, gender-based violence, the political and historical context of violence, power … They have published on these; they interact with people both in this country and internationally. This is our research. This is not a non-academic issue.”

Another academic, who spoke on condition of anonymity, called the statements ”horseshit” and said the SRC has been ”stunningly inactive” on the issue of gender-based violence on the campus.

The recently elected SRC, which pushed the race line at the meeting on Wednesday, leading to a scuffle between students, is also coming under attack for its dislocation from broader student sentiment.

”Only 18% of the students voted for these guys. Their mandate is small and their actions and insensitive utterances so far have shown that they are more concerned with grooming themselves for the BEE [black economic empowerment] world or getting a job in government than with the bread-and-butter issues at the university,” said a student belonging to the Socialist Students’ Movement.

”The SRC is not concerned with gender-based violence. Their representative came to a house meeting after the rape and kept pushing for us to keep it to an hour, and then left. Nothing else,” said a student at Mabel Palmer.

Commenting on ANC Youth League and Sasco utterances at the public meeting on Wednesday, an academic who chose to remain anonymous lamented the ”purging of the left at the university” and that the ”SRC appeared to be working hand-in-glove with the executive”.

A suspect was released by police on Wednesday. Anybody with information regarding the rape should call Tel: 031 260 3333