Is South Africa a Nation of Rape?

While President Jacob Zuma took to the podium to sign off the results of last month’s municipal elections, a protest by a group of women reminded the nation of his rape trial ten years ago.

Although Mr Zuma was acquitted, the verdict in the court of public opinion is still not unanimous. But the protest was not only about the president’s past but also about the present reality in South Africa where one in four women can expect to be raped in her lifetime.

The incidence of rape in South Africa is so common that sometimes our traumatised nation fails to be adequately shocked.

The crime statistics for 2014/15 record 43195 reported rapes, a decrease of 7% over five years but nevertheless an average of 118 reported rapes every day. Research studies suggest that, depending on the locality, as little as one in 13 rapes are reported to the police.

Some studies estimate that the true annual figure for rape could be as high as 482000—that translates to one rape every 11 minutes. At that level of prevalence, a decrease of 7% is negligible.

Compounding the scandal of rape in South Africa is the excess in brutality that often accompanies the crime. At least a quarter of all rapes involve more than one perpetrator, most commonly in gang-related crimes.

South Africa is desperately failing to protect its female population, and its society in general.

The experts point to various constituents to account for South Africa’s rape epidemic: a patriarchal society in which women, even if protected by civil law, are commonly prevented from exercising their rights, especially in terms of their sexual autonomy; a culture of violence in which aggression is displaced and directed at weaker members of society; a system of law enforcement and justice which fails to punish rapists for their crimes, with the consequence that few of the cases actually reported result in a conviction.

Deplorably, a significant number of South Africans routinely trivialise sexual assault. Some believe that a victim “enjoys” the assault (as some Zuma supporters claimed in the 2006 case); others blame her for attracting sexual violence by the clothes she wears. And not a few South Africans believe it justifiable that lesbians — and male homosexuals — should be raped to “correct” their sexual orientation.

The stigma of rape seems to weigh heavier on the victim than it does on her attacker. In this respect, South Africa certainly is not unique. Worldwide, it takes an admirable measure of courage for a survivor of rape to speak publicly about her experience.

The often misogynist reaction to reported campus rapes in the United States testifies to this. Even the comedian Bill Cosby, who is accused of drugging and raping scores of women, still has his vocal supporters.

The Catholic Church condemns rape robustly: “Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It is always an intrinsically evil act, and child-rape even more so” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2356). And yet, faced with responding pastorally to instances of sexual violence, even Church leaders have stumbled.

According to Rape Crisis, there are several reasons why most women don’t report sexual assault to the police. These include fear of retaliation or intimidation by the perpetrator, psychological trauma and self-blame, inadequate access to services, lack of confidence in the police and justice system, their relationship to the attacker (most rapists are known to their victims), fear of negative consequences when the victim is financially dependent on the perpetrator, and the social stigma attached to victims of rape in a community.

Some of these obstacles are immovable until the economic and social liberation of women is accomplished, but on others immediate action must be made possible, particularly in improving law enforcement and justice, providing access to services, and destigmatising rape victims.

As the statistics show, in South Africa the state and civil society clearly are not doing enough to rise up against the incidence of rape. We must speak out. We must work for the empowerment of women. And we must forthrightly stigmatise the rapists, not their victims.