Rape activists battle misogyny

JOHANNESBURG - "Burn the bitch", yelled supporters of Jacob Zuma outside the High Court yesterday, as the woman the former Deputy President is accused of raping came to testify.

Faced with these attitudes, it is little wonder that just one in nine women raped in South Africa report the crime, say activists.

The explosive trial of the man once tipped to succeed President Thabo Mbeki has thrown a spotlight on sexual violence in a country with one of the world's highest rates of rape.

Activists say the case illustrates a deep-seated misogyny in South Africa, where rape - particularly when the accused is known to the victim - is often dismissed as a private matter, and many accuse women of bringing violence upon themselves.

Some 55,000 rapes were reported in South Africa last year but since only one in nine women actually report the crime, according to People Opposing Women Abuse (Powa), the figure is closer to 450,000, in a population of 45 million.

"We are talking about a nation of walking wounded," said Powa's public awareness manager Carrie Shelver.

In court evidence this week, an HIV-positive Aids activist accused Zuma of raping her without a condom. Zuma, a long-time friend of the woman, said the sex was consensual.

Anti-rape campaigners said Zuma supporters have hurled abuse and lobbed objects at activists wearing campaign T-shirts.

"When you look at the intimidation here, you understand why so few women report rape," said Dumisani Rebombo, an anti-rape activist. "There is a tendency to blame the victim."

At the crux of the issue in South Africa is a widely held belief that forced sex with someone you know does not constitute rape.

Activists say this is the main reason why most women do not report sexual violence against them.

A survey of 270,000 young South Africans from 2001-2004 showed 61 per cent of boys and 62 per cent of girls aged 10-14 years believed that forcing sex with someone you know did not count as sexual violence.

That fell to 52 and 54 per cent respectively for boys and girls aged 15-19 years, according to the survey carried out by CIET, a Mexican institute that studies health issues.

The problem is not unique to South Africa - women all over the world struggle to prove rape.

The British Home Office, for instance, estimates that only one in six rapes in Britain are reported.

But activists say South African politicians need to devote more resources to securing convictions and to creating an environment where women feel able to report rape.

Activists say South Africa's apartheid history, where violence was state-sanctioned, has much to answer for.

And unlike tribunals that followed the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, or the war in Yugoslavia, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission did not address the issue of sexual violence. "That kind of violence leaves a deep scar," Shelver said.

- REUTERS