Sexual violence in South Africa

The rate of sexual violence in South Africa is among the highest recorded in the world. Police statistics of reported rapes as a per capita figure has been dropping in recent years, although the reasons for the drop has not been analysed and it is not known how many rapes go unreported. More women are attacked than men, and children have also been targeted, partly owing to a myth that having sex with a virgin will cure a man of HIV/AIDS. Rape victims are at high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS owing to the high prevalence of the disease in South Africa. "Corrective rape" is also perpetrated against LGBT men and women.

Sexual harassment and forms of sexual coercion that do not involve physical force are widely viewed as normal male behaviour ~ Medical Research Council (MRC)

Quotes

• It will dawn on them that over the body of the woman silence is being drawn like a blanket.
  • J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace (1999), p. 110

• In an article written for the Washington Post, Smith claimed that 'rape is endemic' in South African culture, and that 'the role of tradition and religion' in fostering a culture of rape needed to be understood. She stated that rape 'has become a prime means of transmitting [HIV/AIDS], to young women as well as children'.
  • Charlene Leonora Smith, quoted in Lucy Valerie Graham, "Reading the Unspeakable: Rape in J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace", Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 29, no. 3 (2003), p. 434

• Many forms of sexual violence, particularly sexual harassment and forms of sexual coercion that do not involve physical force are widely viewed as normal male behaviour.
  • R. Jewkes, N. Abraham, S. Mathews, "Preventing Rape and Violence in South Africa: Call for Leadership in a New Agenda for Action", Medical Research Council (November 2009)

Historical

• I met much evidence to show that white men's ideals of justice in South Africa are becoming corrupted by contact with the colored hordes. The negro is a lusty animal, and he casts envious eyes upon the beauty of the white woman. While I was at Kimberley several sexual and semisexual outrages (of a most weird and uncanny character) were reported. Only one of the culprits was caught, and summary punishment was meted out to him by his white captor. The white community, far from being shocked, quietly applauded. There was no fuss of any sort. The law said nothing.
  • Ambrose Pratt, The Real South Africa (1913), p. 223