In South Africa, 144 women report rape to police every day – that is six cases reported every hour…
While the number of reported rape incidents is shocking, under-reporting is an even bigger problem. The Medical Research Council’s (MRC) latest research reveals that only one in 25 women in Gauteng report rape.
Extrapolated, up to 3 600 women could be raped in the country every day. South Africa’s latest crime statistics revealed a decrease in reported sexual crimes but in the small town of Bredasdorp where Anene Booysen, 17, was gang-raped and murdered, sexual crimes have increased.
The brutality of Booysen’s rape and murder has sent shockwaves throughout the country.
Crime statistics released last year for the period April 2011 to March 2012 show there were 64 514 sexual crime cases reported to police, down from 66 196 the year before.
But Bredasdorp, a small town about 200km from Cape Town, had seen an increase in the number of cases – there had been 60 reported during the period, up from 47 the year before. There were 9 153 reported cases in the Western Cape, down from 9 299 the year before. Only Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape had more cases.
Rachel Jewkes, head of the MRC’s gender and health research unit, said rape statistics were twofold – those reported to police and those not reported. Six rape cases are reported to police every hour.
“Rape is however monumentally under reported. Based on our research on women in Gauteng in 2010, only one in 25 women who had been raped reported it,” Jewkes said.
The MRC previously said the national figure was that one in nine women report rape, but Jewkes said they believe the problem of under reporting is much greater. In their 2010 research one in four (25 percent) of the women they spoke to said they had been raped.
Some of the city’s courts also reveal a high number of rape cases heard.
NPA spokesman Eric Ntabazalila said on average they received between 25-30 new rape matters each month and between 40-45 rape matters for trial on the regional court roll a month. At the Parow Regional Court there is an average of 26-30 rape cases a week. This week it is dealing with 26 cases. Bellville Magistrate’s Court receives between 10-15 new rape cases a week.
At Goodwood District Court there are nine rape cases on the roll for this week. At the Goodwood Regional Court there are 16 cases on the roll this week and three to four rape matters are finalised with a verdict a month.
At Cape Town Regional court this week there are 15 cases. There are a further 10 matters on the district court roll for first appearances, further investigation and bail applications.”
Source: February 8 2013 at 07:47amBy Zara Nicholson and Michelle Jones
Porn’s role in fuelling rape
Latest findings by Dr Judith Reisman suggests that pornography and sexual promiscuity are destroying a generation of young people. She suggests that from the youngest age, children mimic what they see. If they see sex acts, many children naturally practice these life-changing acts on vulnerable infants and children nearby.
“The offending children are ordinarily not aiming to do harm but rather to act ‘grown up’ as they practice the fascinating, toxic stimuli adult society has cold heartedly loosed into their developmental environment,” said Reisman, visiting professor at Liberty University School of Law.
“We are allowing the cannibalization of our children,” said Reisman. “Thanks to the latest advances in neuroscience, we now know that pornographic visual images imprint and alter the brain, triggering an instant, involuntary, but lasting, biochemical memory trail. And once new neurochemical pathways are established, they are difficult or impossible to delete,” Reisman said.
“Pornographic images also cause secretion of the body’s ‘fight or flight’ sex hormones. This triggers excitatory transmitters and produces non-rational, involuntary reactions. Media erotic fantasies become deeply imbedded, commonly coarsening, confusing, motivating, and addicting many of those exposed. This scientifically documented, neurochemical imprinting affects children and teens especially deeply; their still-developing brains process emotions differently, with significantly less rationality and cognition than the adult brain,” Reisman continued.
“The mainstreaming of pornography since the 1950s directly coincides with the unprecedented explosion in sexual disease and a huge, exponential increase in new types of pornographic copycat sex crimes by and to juveniles and adults. Such facts should inform the legal arguments about free speech versus pornography in public and even private venues,” Reisman concluded.
