torresD
2008-11-03 18:46:00 UTC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1703595.stm
Two men are due to appear at
a court in Johannesburg on Tuesday,
accused of raping a five-month-old
girl who was discovered covered
in blood and in tears.
It is the latest in a
series of rapes of baby girls -
some of them involving children
less than one year-old,
which has left South
Africans reeling with horror.
Every day the newspapers
bring awful revelations:
a nine-month-old girl gang-raped by six men;
an eight-month-old raped and left by the roadside.
I don't know how to take my anger out.
I don't know why he did this
Mother of abused child
Outside the central
Johannesburg magistrates' court,
200 demonstrators gathered carrying
banners with slogans like
"child rapists are not human".
Yet many protesters seem unable
to understand why the rapes are happening.
"I don't have an answer,
it's inhuman, it's inhuman,"
one told me.
Rape statistics from South Africa
are so shocking as to be almost
unbelievable -
women's rights activists say
one South African is raped
every 26 seconds.
It is the young who are particularly vulnerable,
with the police saying that more teenagers are
raped than any other age group.
But even in a country numbed to horrific events,
these cases are bewildering to South Africans,
and making them question where their society is heading.
Unearthing truth
It is hardly believable -
but some think that this is not new,
only that a horrible truth is finally
being acknowledged
Alexandria
Township youngsters are among the most vulnerable
"Actually it's not a new phenomenon,
it's been something that you hide,
you regard it as an embarrassment
within the family.
But now people have started to talk,
they've decided that they've had enough,"
a woman protester told me.
A typical story reveals the horror.
On a poor Johannesburg estate,
a family of eight sleep in one
dirty bedroom.
Last week a neighbour seized
the nine year old daughter,
showed her pornographic magazines
and then raped and indecently assaulted her.
He gave her a few coins, and said sorry.
The little girl needed extensive surgery -
her mother and father are inconsolable.
"I'm very angry, I'm very angry,
I don't know how to take my anger out.
I don't know why he did this,
he used to come here and play
with my children..." said the mother.
The father said he wanted
to hunt down the rapists.
"How many parents' hearts must be broken?"
He is not alone in his rage.
Last weekend in Soweto a
suspected child rapist
was stoned to death.
The government is appealing for calm.
Myths
It is also trying to dispel a widespread rumour -
that having sex with a virgin cures Aids.
Traditional healers, or witchdoctors,
are blamed for spreading this idea,
and encouraging child rape.
A sociologist, Lisa Vetton,
draws a parallel with Europe,
when child prostitution was rampant
"At that time venereal
disease like Aids today
was incurable.
If you had gonorrhea or
syphilis you were going to die.
And exactly the same myth emerged,
that sex with a virgin is going to
cure you -
so it seems like a very old
response whenever sex and
death are combined.
Suddenly women - girls -
get attributed with magical healing powers".
We must re-educate and empower men
Politician Nomvula Mokanyane
Some demonstrators are
calling for longer sentences,
even castration.
Others are more considered.
Local politician Nomvula
Mokanyane says that under apartheid,
African men were stripped
of power and prestige.
Now they take their revenge on women,
and on tiny children.
"We must re-educate and empower men.
There are those who are sick
who need to be re-educated.
My worry is that men's power
is threatened so they use their
sexual organ to inflict pain on women."
South Africa's history,
its poverty and the Aids
pandemic all give insights
into how some men behave.
But the rape of tiny children
leaves people as mystified here
as they would be in any other
part of the world.
There is revulsion,
but there is also bewilderment.
Two men are due to appear at
a court in Johannesburg on Tuesday,
accused of raping a five-month-old
girl who was discovered covered
in blood and in tears.
It is the latest in a
series of rapes of baby girls -
some of them involving children
less than one year-old,
which has left South
Africans reeling with horror.
Every day the newspapers
bring awful revelations:
a nine-month-old girl gang-raped by six men;
an eight-month-old raped and left by the roadside.
I don't know how to take my anger out.
I don't know why he did this
Mother of abused child
Outside the central
Johannesburg magistrates' court,
200 demonstrators gathered carrying
banners with slogans like
"child rapists are not human".
Yet many protesters seem unable
to understand why the rapes are happening.
"I don't have an answer,
it's inhuman, it's inhuman,"
one told me.
Rape statistics from South Africa
are so shocking as to be almost
unbelievable -
women's rights activists say
one South African is raped
every 26 seconds.
It is the young who are particularly vulnerable,
with the police saying that more teenagers are
raped than any other age group.
But even in a country numbed to horrific events,
these cases are bewildering to South Africans,
and making them question where their society is heading.
Unearthing truth
It is hardly believable -
but some think that this is not new,
only that a horrible truth is finally
being acknowledged
Alexandria
Township youngsters are among the most vulnerable
"Actually it's not a new phenomenon,
it's been something that you hide,
you regard it as an embarrassment
within the family.
But now people have started to talk,
they've decided that they've had enough,"
a woman protester told me.
A typical story reveals the horror.
On a poor Johannesburg estate,
a family of eight sleep in one
dirty bedroom.
Last week a neighbour seized
the nine year old daughter,
showed her pornographic magazines
and then raped and indecently assaulted her.
He gave her a few coins, and said sorry.
The little girl needed extensive surgery -
her mother and father are inconsolable.
"I'm very angry, I'm very angry,
I don't know how to take my anger out.
I don't know why he did this,
he used to come here and play
with my children..." said the mother.
The father said he wanted
to hunt down the rapists.
"How many parents' hearts must be broken?"
He is not alone in his rage.
Last weekend in Soweto a
suspected child rapist
was stoned to death.
The government is appealing for calm.
Myths
It is also trying to dispel a widespread rumour -
that having sex with a virgin cures Aids.
Traditional healers, or witchdoctors,
are blamed for spreading this idea,
and encouraging child rape.
A sociologist, Lisa Vetton,
draws a parallel with Europe,
when child prostitution was rampant
"At that time venereal
disease like Aids today
was incurable.
If you had gonorrhea or
syphilis you were going to die.
And exactly the same myth emerged,
that sex with a virgin is going to
cure you -
so it seems like a very old
response whenever sex and
death are combined.
Suddenly women - girls -
get attributed with magical healing powers".
We must re-educate and empower men
Politician Nomvula Mokanyane
Some demonstrators are
calling for longer sentences,
even castration.
Others are more considered.
Local politician Nomvula
Mokanyane says that under apartheid,
African men were stripped
of power and prestige.
Now they take their revenge on women,
and on tiny children.
"We must re-educate and empower men.
There are those who are sick
who need to be re-educated.
My worry is that men's power
is threatened so they use their
sexual organ to inflict pain on women."
South Africa's history,
its poverty and the Aids
pandemic all give insights
into how some men behave.
But the rape of tiny children
leaves people as mystified here
as they would be in any other
part of the world.
There is revulsion,
but there is also bewilderment.