February 21, 2013Produced by Adel van Niekerk
Special Assignmentfocuses on the national outrage following the brutal rape and subsequent death of 17-year-old Anene Booysen and asks: Will this be the turning point in South Africa’s war against rape? The ruthless sexual assault of teenager Anene Booysen in the sleepy Western Cape Town of Bredasdorp this month unleashed public anger from many sectors throughout the country and abroad including the United Nations’ Human Rights Chief – Navi Pillay and the Ministry of Women, Children and People with Disabilities.The bloody attack on Anene – a gang rape and disembowelment of the teenager on a deserted construction site – was said to be so severe that police and hospital staff linked to the case had to receive counseling. Protests and anti-rape campaigns by the media, government and gender activist organisations soon followed.
Anene has seemingly become the overnight poster-child for the hundreds of thousands of rape survivors in a country that is now saying: enough is enough. But with one of the highest rape statistics in the world, critics are also asking if this will jolt an otherwise seemingly desensitized nation into action.
What will it take for us as a society not to forget
Other similar shocking cases have grabbed news headlines in the past – from the rape of baby Tshepang more than a decade ago; to the recent trends of elderly women being raped; the torture and gang rape of Ina Bonette that was ordered by her partner, Johan Kotze and last year, the gang rape of a disabled Sowetan woman that was captured on video. But the incidents of rape continue unabated.However, as mass protests in India have dominated news headlines in that country following a similar brutal gang rape of a student in New Dehli, many activists here question why South Africans are not doing the sameen masse.Will Anene’s death be in vain, as hundreds of thousands of rape victims before her became part of the overwhelming rape statistics? Or will this brutal case garner the momentum to galvanise a country into a winnable war on rape?
Watch Special Assignment tonight on SABC 3 at 9pm
– By
