Recently South Africa has seen the ugly face of gender-based violence.

The horrific rape and murder of 17-year-old Anene Booysen in Bredasdorp in February shocked the country and received worldwide publicity.
Booysen was brutally raped and left for dead by a group of men who had allegedly lured her away when she was with friends.

A staff member at the hospital where she was treated told Die Burger that Booysen’s injuries were “too horrific” to mention in any newspaper. “It was one of the harshest cases we’ve ever seen here at the hospital.”

This tragedy turned the spotlight on a much wider and deeper problem: a woman is raped in South Africa every four minutes!

We read almost daily of rapes and assaults on babies, grannies and women of all ages in between.

The response has been angry but also confused. There are stupid knee-jerk calls to hang or castrate the perpetrators, to let them rot in jail and throw away the key.

There are also quite justified demands for the police and courts, and indeed society as a whole, to take violent crimes against women and children more seriously, and increase the abominably low rate of reporting, arrests and convictions for such offences.

Calls
There are calls for more, and better-staffed, refuges and centres to counsel and assist the victims of violent crime. There have been commendable pickets, vigils and marches across the country, and the “Wear Black on Fridays” campaign.

But none of these proposals answer the most basic question: why is the level of violent crime against women and children so high, both in the world as a whole and in South Africa, and why, at least until now, have we not given it the priority it obviously demands.

Part of the answer lies in South Africa’s socio-economic conditions, the massive triple crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality, which lies at the heart of all our social problems. This has led to the existence of an army of young unemployed men who feel there is no future for them, and in despair turn to drink, drugs and crime.

This does not, however, explain why some poorer countries have lower levels of violence against women and children, and also why such crimes are frequently committed by wealthy middle-class and upper-class men.

The answer is that there is still a mindset among too many men and boys, across the social spectrum, that violence against women is somehow traditional and acceptable.

This was brought home by an interview with Dumisane Rebombo who now works for the gender equality organisation Sonke Gender Justice Network (Mail & Guardian February 22 2013).

He frankly admits that 37 years ago he was guilty of raping a 15-year-old girl. His description of the event illustrates of the context in which such acts take place.

“If disrespecting women was not considered so normal in my community,” he said, “I would most probably not have raped that girl. I was 15 years old when I raped her. I grew up seeing half-naked women in my village running away from violent men all the time. No one talked about it. No one addressed it. It was just the way it was.”

Rebombo and two other boys sat down and came to a decision: they would gang-rape “a girl who thought she was better than us boys, to prove we are men”. They wanted to show that they could “control a woman” and “put her in her place”. To rape her would give them the status of “brave boys” who would be respected because “we knew what we wanted and were brave enough to take it”.

This mindset is still widespread today. It will not be changed by worthy declarations of support for women’s rights and gender equality, important though they are.

It will certainly help if we can get more women to report attacks, for the police and courts to deal with rape more seriously and speedily, and to impose exemplary sentences on those convicted.

But if we are to bring down and ultimately eliminate the scourge of rape and murder of women and children, we have to wage a war against the attitude among men that women are their inferiors and, in effect, their property to dominate, control and treat as they wish.

The conviction rate is extremely low; estimated at 5% of reported cases. Often some cases are postponed many times by our courts. Rape cases are not prioritised and the lack of DNA testing facilities makes it difficult to pin down the perpetrators.

Trivialise cases
Injustice also takes place at a police station level. Frequently rape victims complain that when they lay charges, police officers make jokes and trivialise their cases and pain.

The convictions also hardly match the pain and humiliation, degradation and psychological pain of the victim. The time between charge and conviction is also way too long.

Here are some examples of convictions as reported by a daily newspaper:

KwaZulu-Natal
• A 23-year-old man who raped his 15-year-old niece has been given two life sentences by the Ngwelezane Regional Court. The rape took place in February 2011.

• A 40-year-old man was sentenced to 24 years in jail by the Verulam Magistrate’s Court for raping a six-year-old child. The rape took place in April 2011.

Eastern Cape
A 41-year-old businessman is in custody for repeatedly raping his 13-year-old stepdaughter. The rapes started in 2012. He was due to appear in the Alexandria Magistrate’s Court on February 26.

In 2012 Special Assignment aired a chilling episode of women who have to relocate and sleep in the local councillor’s house in the Eastern Cape. The rapists rape, kill and mutilate their victims. They have not been caught and women and young girls live in fear.

Gauteng
A 26-year-old man was sentenced to 20 years in jail for the rape of a 23-year-old woman. The rape took place in November 2010.

On average victims wait for two years to hear judgement; even a case involving a six-year-old child took nearly 22 months.

In the examples above the Gauteng survivor waited nearly 27 months.

Specialised courts
We need to demand specialised courts for these crimes to speed up the cases surely, as fewer cases will be withdrawn, less evidence will be lost and more cases will be reported.

A large number of rapists have money and they are often released on bail. It should be mandatory that until his innocence is proved the alleged rapist is kept in custody. A call has been made for a register of offenders and for their addresses to be made public.

Rural areas
Rape in rural areas is also dramatically under-reported, as the statistics below, drawn from the Mail & Guardian, show:

• Only one in nine rapes is reported to the police.

• One woman in three will be raped or abused by her supposed loved one in the course of her life.

• Only 5% of those charged will be convicted.

• Of the 1 127 police stations in South Africa, 198, or 17.5%, reported 100 or more sexual crimes in 2011/12. Thohoyandou reported almost 400, and this was the seventh-highest in the country!

Numsa demands a specialised and highly trained police unit to deal with this scourge, and specialised courts that deal expeditiously with these crimes, organised so that victims do not end up sitting with the accused.
Numsa also demands a mandatory life sentence for rapists who kill their supposed loved ones.

The response to the gang-rape, mutilation and murder of women and children cannot just be 15 minutes of public outrage or 16 days of campaigning for No Violence against Women and Children.

That’s why the upcoming national gender meeting will develop a programme that will campaign for no violence against women and children 365 days a year.

We also encourage members, shopstewards and staff to continue wearing black on Fridays.

We will also work on a link on the Numsa website where information on where to seek help will be easily accessible.