31% of South African Men Are Rapists
(Professor Rachel) Jewkes and her colleagues (on the Medical Research Council) interviewed a representative sample of 1,738 men in South Africa's Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces.Of those surveyed, 28% said they had raped a woman or girl, and 3% said they had raped a man or boy. Almost half who said they had carried out a rape admitted they had done so more than once, with 73% saying they had carried out their first assault before the age of 20.
The study, which had British funding, also found that men who are physically violent towards women are twice as likely to be HIV-positive.
Only 7% of reported rapes are estimated to lead to a conviction.
A report published by the trade union Solidarity earlier this month said that one child is raped in South Africa every three minutes, with 88% of rapes going unreported. It found that levels of child abuse in South Africa are increasing rapidly.
A woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped, than learning how to read.During a recent parliamentary debate on child abuse in South Africa, it was reported that there has been a 400% increase in the sexual violence against children over the past decade.
And meanwhile, the hodgepodge of laws governing rape in South African is slowly reformed...
South African lawmakers Tuesday approved major reforms to the country's rape laws, including extending the definition of rape to include men.Among other changes, it equalizes treatment of male and female victims and labels many more types of assaults, including forced oral sex, as "rape." Previously, forced anal penetration of men or boys was prosecuted as an "indecent act" and given much lighter sentencing.
A man convicted of raping a 9-year-old girl in 2004 appealed to the high court, citing evidence that found she had been anally, but not vaginally, penetrated. The court ruled May 10 that under the laws then prevailing the defendant could only be seen to have committed indecent assault and sent his sentence back to a lower court for review.
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