The rape of our nation

This is the first of a three-part series in which the Cape Times tackles the issue of child rape and looks at the impact it has on the children, their families and the perpetrators. The series will also look at the role of the justice system and society in protecting children from harm.

Cape Town - Young children are increasingly becoming vulnerable to rapists, and recent figures show that at least two minors a day have been raped in the past three months.

This is based on figures from three health care centres in the province providing assistance to rape survivors - the Mitchells Plain Forensic Unit and the Worcester and Khayelitsha Thuthuzela care centres.

Between June and August, counsellors at the three centres saw 114 children who were raped. A further 76 cases were categorised as suspected rape because the children could not articulate what happened to them, according to the Mosaic training, service and healing centre for women.

This has resulted in a number of cases before court being withdrawn. Khayelitsha alone had 108 reported cases - 80 confirmed and 38 suspected. Recently, Gugulethu has had a spate of child rape incidents with at least six arrests since August.

Thuthuzela, headed by the National Prosecuting Authority, is focused on providing medial care for rape survivors and secondary trauma counselling. It works with the criminal justice system to achieve speedy convictions. It also works closely with the police, the departments of social development and health and NGOs.

Mosaic said victims’ ages range from a few months old to 17 years old. In the week of September 7 to 13, police in the province had recorded eight cases of child rape where victims were under the age of 5, Community Safety MEC Dan Plato said.

This followed a spate of incidents in Gugulethu where in just one one street two children were recently raped within a month of each other. One of them, 10-year-old Chelsea Godlo, was killed in August and her attackers, who are relatives, have appeared in court. In the other incident a 33-year-old man was arrested for allegedly raping his 10-year-old daughter. According to the recent crime stats, 60 percent of the rapes in the Western Cape are committed by people known to the victim.

The UN Association of South Africa, which is set to hold a Human Rights Programme in Stellenbosch on Thursday, has said that the high levels of violence against women and children in some communities in the country are unacceptable.

“The increase in rapes of infants and young children reported on almost a daily basis in newspapers is an indication of the serious lack of respect for the human rights of victims. More should be done to educate South African citizens on respect for human rights and the human rights situation in South Africa,” the organisation said.

It said advocacy for policies and laws must be increased to ensure that children’s rights were protected and promoted at all times.

But Mosaic, one of the NGOs based at the Thuthuzela centres, said this was not happening.

“Rape, sexual offences in general as well as domestic violence has become the norm and not the exception. Previously I have used the analogy that domestic violence has become like Kellogg’s - almost in every home,” the organisation’s visibility and partnership manager, Arnelle Meyer, said.

“There is complacency around issues of sexual and domestic violence and voices are raised to bring about awareness during very specific times of the year (March - International Women’s Day, August - National Women’s month and during the 16 days of activism) and in addition, when rape cases are in the media.”

Meyer said the figures showed that it was not uncommon for so many cases to be reported in one week. There was a need for an increased prosecution rate for sexual offences.

“This should send a clear message to perpetrators that the state will not tolerate sexual offences. There needs to be increased support to civil society organisations that focus on providing psychosocial support to survivors of sexual violence on a long-term basis,” she said.

In addition, Meyer said the government should have more social workers to be able to deal with case loads and increased support for the Basic Education Department to ensure that pupils were educated on the Children’s Act as well as the Sexual Offences Act.

She said a greater emphasis should be placed on rehabilitation of perpetrators as well as turning the victims into survivors.

Dependent on the type of abuse, type of perpetrator, level of violence and other factors, psychologist Jillian Butterworth said the damage and effects could be far-reaching - right into adulthood.

She said no two children were the same, but when looking for signs of abuse it was important to look for changes in their behaviour.

Heart-breaking instances of child abuse:

* In the Western Cape High Court in 2012, 27-year-old Soyiso Nofemele was convicted on 12 counts of rape of young children, 12 of abduction and one of murder. His victims, all from Khayelitsha, were aged between 2 and 8.

* Two weeks ago, Enoch Bothata Lefuthane, 37, was found guilty by the Western Cape High Court of the rape of three young boys. Sentencing is scheduled for December 1.

* In January, an 11-year-old boy was raped in a derelict building in Bonteheuwel. Barely two weeks earlier, a 9-year-old girl from Delft had been raped and set alight. The charges against her rapist and killer were withdrawn because the girl, who died in hospital, had been the only witness.

* Early last year, Achmat Benting from Beacon Valley, known as “a grandfather to everyone”, was charged with four counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one of crimen injuria against six girls since 2010. Many more incidents allegedly came to the fore. Benting rejected the claims.

* At the beginning of August, a man of 46 was arrested for the abduction and rape of a 4-year-old Manenberg girl. She had allegedly been abducted from her parent’s backyard shack and found hours later at a house in Athlone.

* In March, a 5-year-old girl was allegedly raped by three older boys on the grounds of a Mitchells Plain school. Her parents only learnt of the incident almost two weeks afterwards. Her father said the school had “failed in its duties” by not notifying anyone.

* In August last year, a 4-month-old baby was raped. She was admitted to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital and released after a month, after going to theatre five times for wound repair and cleaning. She had been snatched from her bed while her parents were sleeping. A boy in the house was also raped. A 25-year-old man was charged with abduction and rape.

* In 2001, Human Rights Watch released a 138-page report stating that South African girls as young as 9 were being raped and sexually abused at schools in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Western Cape, by classmates and teachers. One teacher described the actions as a “fringe benefit” because of low pay.

* In June 2001, it was reported that schoolgirls on the Cape Flats and elsewhere were selling their bodies in exchange for lifts to school in taxis.

* In November 2001, a father from Elsies River was given a seven-year sentence for raping his 14-year-old daughter in 1999. The judge found the man was “not the type of person who has to spend the rest of his life behind bars”. The father said he wanted to be the first to have sex with her.

Cape Times