Interpol named South Africa the rape capital of the world. An alarming statement but is it alarming enough to keep our attention and will us into action. Rape is so common in our society that we have become desensitised but the recent brutal rape and murder of 17-year-old Anene Booysen a few weeks ago in the Boland town of Bredasdorp has angered South Africans. But how long will this moral outrage last? Tanja Bencun looks at what rape reflects about our society.
Booysen was gang raped, her stomach cut open, her throat slit and her intestines pulled out. Left for dead on a construction site, Booysen managed to identify one of the rapists. It was a family friend. Someone she knew. Another shocking statement. Rape among women is more likely to be perpetrated by menknownto them. Over 64 000 women in our country reported sexual offences last year. That is 175 per day. When going through the stats of reported crime, I was speechless after calculating a figure of over half a million (535 768) reported rape cases since 2005 in SA. Hundreds of thousands of woman who have been violated in the worst way. These figures are believed to be even higher as many cases go unreported. Dr Saths Cooper from the Psychological Society of SA says we are a violent and aggressive society. “It has been violent since its inception and the period of democracy has not reduced that level of violence. In fact it has probably increased in some respects and there has been more media coverage of incidents of violence, in particular rape. Rape has been with us for a hell of a long time and very few meaningful steps have been taken to deal with rape and serious violence.” Cooper believes that many factors contribute to rape. Power relations; fractured socialization; a violent society; confused masculinity and sexuality. According to government figures, 90% of women have experienced emotional and physical abuse and 71% have experienced sexual abuse.Even with the sad reality of gender violence in our country, Cooper believes we can change the way in which ‘troubled’ men view relationship behaviour by teaching relationships in school as well as teaching respect for the self and then respect for the other. Females are not lesser beings “We need to start with our child rearing practices. We need to start with our schools. We need to actually change the conception of female and the views that we have that females are the lesser beings and therefore can be treated in any way. If I have a deep insecurity about myself…I do not know who I am. I do not like who I am…I will engage in certain activities to make me feel better about my warped socialisation and sense of self. You will not find a rapist with a good ego and a good sense of self,” Cooper adds.
Prof Farid Esack from UJ, whoworked on the domestic violence act as a commissioner for gender equality, highlights the ineffectiveness of the magistrates and police as an area where attention is needed.“South Africa has the most progressive acts and laws on gender violence. So I don’t see any significant scope for the law to be amended. Much more needs to be done on the training of magistrates, and the education of police people…it is at these levels where things are ignored…at a legal level there is not more that can be done to improve things as far as rape is concerned.”
Rape has been with us for a hell of a long time and very few meaningful steps have been taken to deal with rape and serious violence
Esack does not think capital punishment is the answer but rather constructive interventions that work on rape and gender violence likeSonke(a gender justice network) andRape Crisisas our best hope in working with these ‘deeply problematic men’. He also thinks that improving the economic conditions of these people would help. “There is a huge problem in South Africa with the disparities between wealth and poverty. It is very marked in the rural areas. There is a lack of social cohesion in our society.”Cooper says, however, that people who are poor are not necessarily the people that tend to rape and pillage.”Being poor is not a condition for becoming aggressive or violent – there are other ingredients. It has to do with the highly charged race relations we have had in our country before.The highly stratified way that we look at male and female interactions, the inability to mediate that meaningfully, and realize that the other is a person and we need to treat them the way we expect to be treated.”In June 2009, a survey released by the Medical Research Council (MRC) found that 28% of the men surveyed had raped a woman or girl, and one in 20 said they had raped a woman or girl in the past year. The survey was carried out on 1 738 men in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces. Another shocking find was that 73% of those admitting to rape said they carried out their first assault before the age of 20.OutrageProfessor Rachel Jewkes of the MRC, who carried out the research, said: “We have a very, very high prevalence of rape in South Africa. I think it is down to ideas about masculinity based on gender hierarchy and the sexual entitlement of men. It’s rooted in an African ideal of manhood.”The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, expressed shock after the Booysen incident, saying: “I am deeply disturbed by the fact that arrest and conviction rates of rape perpetrators remain extremely low. This is not only a shocking denial of justice for the thousands of victims, but also a factor that has contributed to the normalization of rape and violence against women in South African society,” Pillay said. “Violence against women is not only a human rights violation; it is also a brutal manifestation of wider discrimination against women, which is to be understood against the background of subordination of women within the patriarchal system that still exists in South Africa.”
(Booysen as she appears in her ID book)
The tragic loss of life when Booysen’s mutilated body was found in an open field re-awakened our eyes to this epidemic. But for how long will we be gripped by this brutality in a society which Cooper says is a fickle one. “Our memories are very short; we don’t focus on things that ought to be focused on. We deal more in the sensation of the next sale rather than say how we turn this around to become more edified.” Rape in our country is an epidemic. Most South African rapists go unpunished because it is one of the most under-reported crimes and has one of the lowest conviction rates.One just has to look at today’s headline news to see the reality of this problem. 12 Carletonville rape suspects due in court; Doctor’s rape trial resumes; ANC disgusted by rape of 2-year-old; Rape ‘Out of Control’ in Eastern Cape Village; Police hunt West Rand gang rape suspects. Our society is an unhealthy one. Whatever the reasons for South Africa suffering the highest incidence of rape in the world, gender violence is never okay. It cannot be allowed to become a normal part of our society and our psyche. Enough is enough.
– By Tanja Bencun, feature producer
