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Commission for Gender Equality calls for holistic view into social factors behind rape

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The Commission for Gender Equality says there should be a holistic view into social factors that could have contributed to eight young women being gang raped near a mine dump in Krugersdorp on Gauteng’s West Rand.

The women were part of a production crew shooting a music video. They were working on site when the attack took place last Thursday.

More than 80 suspects were arrested over the weekend after the brutal mass rape and are expected to appear in the local Magistrate’s Court on Monday morning.

Police say some of those arrested may be linked to the gang rape of the eight young women.

The Commission’s Advocate, Nthabiseng Sepanya, says high unemployment among the youth makes them vulnerable.

“We also need to look at issues of unemployment how did these young girls actually get called by somebody that they had not known before who promised them R300 to do a music video and they were up for it. That for me shows the level of desperation and limited opportunities out there. Why do we have our young girls in South Africa so desperate.”

Chemical castration

Human Rights activist Petros Majola says he supports chemical castration as punishment for rapists.

The proposal was made by the ANC’s social transformation sub-committee at the party’s policy conference after the idea was rejected at the last policy conference in 2017.

National Executive Committee member Lindiwe Sisulu, who chaired the commission, told a media briefing on Saturday night that the proposal had been revived by female delegates partially as a response to the series of horrific attacks on women over the days leading to the conference.

Majola says that chemical castration should be implemented on condition that a thorough investigation into the matter is done.

“We need to check if all these things will be done to the correct targets. Remember in South Africa, we still have a challenge with investigations where wrong people would be arrested, prosecuted and convicted, but after a number of years, they will be released for wrongful arrest. So, we need to make sure that whatever we want to do, we tighten our investigation system so that we don’t castrate the wrong person.”

ANC Women’s League proposes chemical castration as a punishment for rapists: 

Nationalities of the accused in Krugersdorp gang rape

Meanwhile, Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, says it is not only Lesotho nationals who are implicated in the rape incident that happened in Krugersdorp.

ANC delegates at the policy conference have called for strong measures to be taken with the aim of strengthening the immigration laws.

The delegates have proposed that the South African Government must withdraw from treaties that have led to people exploiting the immigration laws of the country.

Motsoaledi has also given indications about the background of people who have been arrested for the incident.

“Up to so far, the evidence we got is that there are different nationalities but up to so far, no South Africans have been identified among the nationalities that were identified there or at least those who were arrested.”

The Lesotho Government is investigating allegations of Basotho Nationals committing crimes in South Africa.

Liranyane Thamae from the Lesotho Consulate in South Africa explains in the video below: 

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