Political transition and sexual violence
In order to understand rape in South Africa today, we need to understand its prevalence and nature in the past. That, however, is very difficult, as rape statistics from the apartheid era – particularly those for non-white populations – cannot be viewed as reliable. This is due to many factors, some of which are the following:
- Prior to South Africa’s democratic transition, police resources were concentrated in white areas, with policing in black areas being predominantly targeted towards political control. Township residents had little faith in a ‘justice’ system that was at the same time being used to oppress them. As a result, apartheid-era crime statistics are biased by under-reporting.
- Worse still, complainants ran the risk of being seen as colluding with security forces. Writing about sexual violence in 1994, Armstrong quotes an informant as saying that during apartheid ‘no black woman would go to a police station … just to be seen near a police station might mean that you would be perceived as an informer, your home would be burnt down and you would be killed.’
- Furthermore, gender-based violence was seen as a potentially divisive problem that could be used politically against black men and thereby divert attention from the pressing issue of racism.
- It is also quite likely that even when black women reported being raped – to predominantly white police officers – many were not taken seriously and their reports not recorded.
- Before 1993, marital rape was not a crime and none of these assaults would have been included in any statistics.
- Under apartheid, the territory that is today South Africa contained a number of nominally independent homelands and self-governing territories, each with their own police force. In total, prior to 1994, South Africa had 11 different police agencies, with widely varying competencies in the collection of crime statistics. Crimes reported in the so-called independent homelands were not included in national figures. Poor record-keeping makes it impossible to even estimate pre-1994 levels of rape in those areas.
If we look at the decade preceding South Africa’s transition, we see that between 1983 and 1993, reported rapes almost doubled from 15 342 to 27 056. Commentators expressed concern in the early nineties about soaring rates of gender-based violence, linking it to the pernicious effect of apartheid in destroying family structures through the enforcement of migrant labour policies and the perversion of South African masculinities. In addition to the militarisation of South African male identities, as mentioned previously, apartheid shamed and dishonoured black men by disregarding their human dignity and denying them access to education, jobs and power over the affairs of their own country as well as in their own lives, thereby robbing them of choice. White men were shamed and dishonoured by their role as oppressors, particularly those conscripted into the armed forces. These collective masculine wounds expressed themselves not only in armed struggle but were mirrored in a domestic struggle, where the home and the intimate lives of men became a battle ground for reclaiming power in another sphere.
As South Africa began its transition to democracy in the early 1990s, it again saw a rapid increase in reported rapes and other violent crimes.Cases of reported rape increased from 27 056 in 1993 to a peak of 55 114 between April 2004 and March 2005, reflecting a prevalence rate of 118,3/100 000 of the population. This is amongest the highest reported rates of rape in the world.
Although sexual violence, and crime generally, has been typified as a product of South Africa’s transition, the popular focus on post-apartheid crime figures is probably misleading. Certain commentators linked the rising levels of crime to political, economic and social trends which, although accentuated by rapid political reform, originated before the political transition. In all likelihood, this position is correct. It is likely that the increases seen during South Africa’s transition stem from a combination of three factors: increased reporting, better record-keeping and actual increases in the prevalence of criminal offences.
Consequences for victims
The criminal justice system and rape
In 2010/2011 Rape Crisis saw over 2 700 rape survivors for direct support and this number increased to over 5 000 in 2011/2012. Some of these survivors had reported the matter and some had not. Those who had reported, experienced the justice system in many instances as helpful, with distinct pockets of excellence where dedicated officials went the extra mile on their behalf and made them believe that their case was being taken very seriously. But even where this was the case in one area of the CJS, the opposite was usually true in another, with the result that there was no one case where all parts of the system – police services, health facilities and the courts – worked well and in a coordinated fashion to ensure a successful conviction.
Rape survivors describe their lack of support and consequent disempowerment as stemming from a range of flaws within the justice system, which can best be summarised as follows:
- Rape victims know little or nothing about this complex system before they enter it, and they find it almost incomprehensible at times.
- The system does little or nothing to inform survivors about the progress of their case and what is expected of them with regard to next steps.
- There is no provision made for survivors to receive any form of psychosocial care inside the justice system.
- Officials are often biased against survivors and treat them insensitively or inappropriately, causing secondary trauma.
- The system is fragmented, lacking cohesive links between one service provider and another in the overall service chain – from the police services, to the forensic unit to the courtroom. Many cases fall between the cracks and are lost or weakened as a result.
- Government departments responsible for state service providers are unable to collaborate effectively to tackle the problem at higher levels of influence.
- Survivors are unaware of the fact that they can complain about the system, and don’t know how to go about doing so if their rights are not being upheld.
- The way the system is set up gives the accused more rights and greater levels of representation in court than the victim of the crime.
It is no wonder that conviction rates are low, the rate for Gauteng being 4%
[8] and the Western Cape 7%. Rape is prevalent in the Western Cape and in South Africa, but, as already discussed, it is also under-reported. This is partly because communities have no faith in a system that lacks the capacity to address their needs and that allows rapists to go unpunished. The resulting culture of impunity can only drive the number of rape incidents upwards, thereby seriously denying women their right to live free from violence.
Levels of violence
Rape in South Africa has emerged as a crime of extreme violence. Commentators liken the types of rape they see in South Africa to those perpetrated during armed conflict, in terms of the degradation, ritual humiliation and the extent of injuries, such as mutilation, that are involved.
Further indicating the extremity of the violence that accompanies rape, researchers have found that twelve times more women are raped and then murdered in South Africa every year than in the United States. A recent national mortuary-based study concluded that in South Africa a woman is killed every six hours by an intimate partner, another record-setting statistic.
Studies at various sites have found multiple perpetrator involvement in 25% to 55% of rapes. In 2011, 55% of the rape survivors counselled by Rape Crisis had been raped by more than one offender. Of these rapes, 25% had been perpetrated by known gangs. In multiple perpetrator rapes, the number of offenders ranged from 2 to 30 in respect of any one victim.
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