The annual crime stats present us with figures of how many people reported their crimes in the previous year.
These can be incredibly hard to comprehend. It’s hard for me to imagine what 100 people look like, never mind thousands of people. So trying to imagine the 64 514 people who reported a sexual offence between April 2011 and March 2012 is almost impossible.
What makes this more incomprehensible is the daily news we get of women being abused, raped, sexually assaulted, sexually harassed and essentially bearing the brunt of a failing ability of the state to protect its citizens from violence, and a crisis of both the criminal justice system to convict and incarcerate offenders, and a crisis of South African masculinity that enacts violence on women and children every single minute.
Breaking down the numbers — what is 64 514?
Let’s try to break that figure down into something more understandable then shall we.
– 64 514 divided by 365 days a year = 176.75 sexual offences reported a day.
– 176.75 sexual offences reported per day = 7.36 reported an hour.
So essentially what we’re seeing is that a sexual offence is reported about every eight minutes. So dividing it in terms of time makes it a little more comprehensible. Every eight minutes (how long have you been reading this) a survivor of a sexual offence reports a sexual offence. Be clear, this doesn’t mean that every 8 minutes someone is a victim of a sexual offence — because many people don’t report sexual offences, and if they do, it’s rarely within 60 seconds of the event.
Does this help us understand how many people that is? For me, it makes it even harder to understand the scale of this type of criminal offence.
So what about this? Imagine if you ran 1km per person who reported a sexual offence. You’d run 64 514km. How far is that? Well, it’s 1.5 times the circumference of the earth which is 40 075.017 km (equatorial). If you ran 5km a day, it would take about 12 902 days to complete your task. That’s 35 years of your life.
Will those 64 514 be more likely to get some form of justice than those who chose not to report?
Of course, it’s only those that report a rape that have the opportunity to go to trial. Sexual offences are considered crimes against the state, and thus the perpetrator is prosecuted by the state. It’s not a case of survivor vs perpetrator, but state vs perpetrator. The survivor becomes a witness in their own case.
How many of those sexual offences will go to trial? In a study on rape attrition, Dee Smythe and Lillian Artz show that most cases don’t make it past the police station because:
“The second stage of the process — including reporting, forensic medical examinations, statement taking, investigations/evidence gathering and arrest of accused persons — is also a key attrition point in our criminal justice system. The ability to find the accused, and in some cases the complainant, has a great impact on the ability of the criminal justice system to assist rape complainants. Without the accused the case cannot proceed. Other aspects of the investigation, including the ability of investigating officers to collect appropriate and relevant evidence for the prosecution of rape cases, is also questionable in the majority of cases.”
They provide an even scarier analysis of what this actually means in practice on page 168 of the article:
“The findings of a shocking 1.998 CIETafrica study illustrate how attrition works: it was shown that for every 394 women raped in the Southern Johannesburg Metropole, 272 (69%) reported the attack to the police; of these only .7 (6%) became ‘rape cases’; one of the .7 was ‘lost’ in a manner considered fraudulent, five were referred to court for prosecution and one resulted in a conviction.”
The scary thing is that 45% of sexual offence cases that went to trial achieved a conviction in the 2010/2011 period, a total of 4 915 cases (see page 10 of that report). In the same year, 66 196 new offences were reported.
An existing backlog of 17 242 cases exists at a regional and high court level. The minister of community safety stated that “convictions are a key deterrent” to perpetration of a crime. It doesn’t seem that a 45% chance of getting a conviction IF you ever go to trial is something that would scare someone off.
What does this mean?
It means the criminal justice system is not working for the survivors of sexual offences. The poor decisions at police level mean most cases don’t get to court. The low conviction rates in court mean that most who undergo the harrowing process of seeing their perpetrator in court do not achieve a conviction, and their perpetrator goes free.
Do I think you should report a sexual offence against you? Is it worth it?
Some days I think, why not spend all that time and energy on healing yourself. On taking yourself for counselling and healthcare. On rebuilding your ability to live as a whole healed person. I think f**k the (in)justice system and its failure to take the rights of survivors seriously. I think f**k the magistrates who have no understanding of sentencing that is appropriate to a crime and so have their sentences repealed or reduced at higher courts, providing survivors with a false sense of security in their convictions. I think f**k the section of the Act that allows for “serious and compelling” evidence that sentences should be reduced, and all the bullshit reasons that have been given to reduce them. I think f**k all of that. Stay home, get better, live your life, don’t let the incident define you.
Other days, I think that if you don’t it’s likely the perpetrator will perpetrate again. He cannot fear a conviction if you don’t report. Prepare yourself for a long battle, but know that there are people, organisations and institutions that believe you and will support you.
I don’t know. I guess it’s up to you. The bottom line is that the scale of this problem is more terrifying than we’re acknowledging.
This is scary, but thank you for highlighting this matter and breaking it down to what it really means and can affect us.
sad sad sad stuff…
Sad and worrying. We live in a misogynist society under the misnomer of traditionalism, where men think women are lesser beings and where some judges obviously secretly think that ” a woman with her skirts up can run faster than a man with his trousers down”. And to think that the women’s league are all for Zuma!. As I said, sad and worrying.
It appears that a conviction can only be obtained on these (or any other) violent crimes when at least some criteria is met in The NuSA (New unimproved South Africa):
- He falls into the authorities lap.
- It happens on a lap that at least gives more than a continental fornication about his job.
- The perpetrator isn’t politically, judicially or SAPS connected (and saps they are).
- The perpetrator cannot borrow, steal or beg for enough money to bribe or make dockets disappear.
These horrific statistics bear this out. Disgusting really. South African citizens are exposed, open and bare to the most filth-ridden scummy criminals in the world, yet there are STILL people who believe that the ANC (Apartheid’s New Custodian) is worthy of leading the country and have it’s citizens best interests at heart.
Its your irrational fears and prejudices that cause you to stereotype SA males and conjure up nonsensical analogies (between rape and the circumference of the earth etc) in a desperate attempt to generate hysteria about rape in our country.
Furthermore, cultural differences brings the the entire method of defining and counting incidents of rape, into question. Most of these statistics generated by biased western “rights organizations” invariably create negative stereotypes of indigenous cultures.
Your infantile rant does a disservice to this very important topic of violence against women in societies all over the world.
Vigilante justice becomes more and more appealing as legal justice only protects criminals….. THAT is reality!
This, in a country that prides itself on Ubuntu. We should be ashamed.
In this country we have a Ministry which is supposed to look after the interests of women and children, but the leaders of this portfolio are more intrested in overseas trips, parties, shindigs, self enrichment and the promotion of the ANC.
How many Rm has been spent so far…on nothing?
Take our leader, for example…
I always THOUGHT Harris was stupid and ignorant, but now I am CONVINCED!
So, Africans and Westerners have different definitions of rape. How convenient! I bet the women feel so relieved!
Harris, that has to be one of your most ridiculous posts ever.
You accuse Jennifer of creating “hysteria about rape”, while providing zero evidence to contradict the mountain of evidence that points towards a rape crisis in this country.
“cultural differences brings the the entire method of defining and counting incidents of rape, into question.”
Cultural differences mean rape in one culture may not be rape in another culture? That is ridiculous. There is a definition of rape in our law. What falls into that definition is rape. That is final. How else would you define forced penetration of a person without their consent? Really Harris, taking your nonsense to new levels here.
” Most of these statistics generated by biased western “rights organizations” invariably create negative stereotypes of indigenous cultures.”
Zero evidence to contradict the rape statistics. More baseless nonsense from Harris.
“Your infantile rant does a disservice to this very important topic”
If anything, you should be ashamed of your comment and apologise to Jennifer. You are being nothing more than a nasty toad.
Keep Calm and Carry On says Dave. But, alas, cultural methods do not “bring the entire method of defining and counting incidents of rape into question” because we have a sexual offences act (Act 32 of 2007, should you ever choose to read it) that clearly defines what rape is.
As for the statistics which you claim are “generated by biased western ‘rights organisations’” are you referring to the South African Police Services? Because that’s where the rape statistics came from. Or are you referring to the convictions? Because those stats came from our National Prosecuting Authority? Or are you speaking about the attrition study? Because that was conducted by researchers based at UCT. Where would you prefer we get our stats from?
How does my ‘infantile rant’ do a disservice? Explain Dave. You have been a tad unclear throughout your comment.
Harris. ” cultural differences brings the the entire method of defining and counting incidents of rape, into question. Most of these statistics generated by biased western “rights organizations” invariably create negative stereotypes of indigenous cultures.”
Please, please, please explain….!
@Jen, horrifying, but not surprising stats. Ignore Harris, he’s a serial troller. That our “leaders” like Radebe continue to posture and pontifcate in the face of such statistics is disgrace, but that typifies the ANC government to day.
As an aside there is also the statistic that most people are mudered by someone acquainted to them. Yeah right, those are the ones they solve; all 6% or something of them.
Cultural differences and law defining rape can be argued but within african perspectives the newly reported rapes by husbands to wives has never been a case or course of concern ever defined or forming a part of rape defination until late influence to the african law by western coloniest and intruded defination of the late, imposed as law by the westerns defined as rape, since the africans always believed that nobody deserve to be charged or seen to be falling under that catergory deserving to be charged for consuming what is already his own possession or falling under the catergory of his or her own belongings. As no law within afrocentric view ever seen need for one having to seek consent to consume what falls within his own belongings, as such would always cause contradictions to law and divert attention and energy intended to capture and prosecute the right calprit who violate the human rights, hence if that was still falling under the same category and qualify for such prosecution, nothing like human would ever be defined as belonging to the other by any means and ways, thus the term husband or wife has to be deleted from the present vocabulary as it creates a double standards and worse confusion than anything that betrays people involved into self incriminations. Better than people acknowledging that they would always be strange to each other, hence derseving to seek consent anytime to invade the next person’s space. In that case therefore we deserve to be singles.
As confusion and illusions coming with the term marriage would always betray individuals and groups into unexpected long term persecutions and sentencing by unclear laws by westerns and their former colonists to what is potrayed as possessions , as a single person has a very clear understanding as male in approaching and seeking consent to invade the space of the desired female counterpart for any desired happy outcomes at any given circumstances.
We are therefore entitled to acknowledge ourselves as forever individuals and singles to one another for our own safety , clarity and innocent status protection to law. As family description harbers the danger of illussional understanding of belongings to males with a negative higher risk of persecutions within the western standards of laws.
No man has ever fallen into wrong side of law as single or in spending for prostitutional services with right and untainted clearly defined attitude than the opposite.
@Jen
Like you, I too deplore violence against women, but don’t you think cultural influences plays a HUGE role in sexuality and sexual crimes? Why portray SA as the “rape capital” of the world when the data itself is questionable? Many rapes in conservative communities around the world go unreported. The very definition of rape, legal age of consent etc. varies greatly between countries, just like the rest of their laws regarding sex crimes. Furthermore, some of these statistics are false allegations, again based local laws, serve the personal and political agendas of the unscrupulous – warmongers even use rape statistics to impose sanctions and/or regime change! How can you blindly believe these questionable statistics mainly compiled by western lobby groups?
Your ranting like much of mainstream media reporting on sexual violence, polarizes male-female relationships and negatively stereotypes black males in particular. Isn’t it better to figure out the root causes of sexual violence which in SA, which largely stems from our violent past? Shouldn’t we find more humane methods to address sex crimes than our current eurocentric system of retributive justice that only views incarceration as the solution. If we’re truly concerned about violence against women, we should be actively promoting the Traditional Courts Bill that seeks to find alternative systems of justice than could work on the long term for all of us in our diverse country.
Harris, just because the definition of rape varies from country to country, does not negate the justifiability of the definition in our law. What, may I ask, is wrong with the definition in our law? Have you even read it?
Unless you are like the Republicans in the US who want a stricter, more misogynistic definition like “forcible rape”?
“Shouldn’t we find more humane methods to address sex crimes than our current eurocentric system of retributive justice that only views incarceration as the solution.”
We are talking about a serious crime that involves the violation of another’s body. It was under the ANC minimum sentence legislation that applies to rape was passed. Something the ANC can be credited for.
“we should be actively promoting the Traditional Courts Bill that seeks to find alternative systems of justice than could work on the long term for all of us in our diverse country.”
A Bill that does not make provision for the participation of women and puts too much power in the hands of patriarchal chiefs. Face it, it won’t survive constitutional challenge.
Anyway, as far as I know, even under the TCB traditional courts would not have jurisdiction over rape. So no point discussing it.
Last time I checked, South Africa was a nation of laws based on a Constitution. There is no two tier system where cultural law runs alongside The Law of the land. Besides, it is preposterous to suggest that there is any difference when it comes to culture and its roll in the definition of rape.
But all of this is nonsense, lowering the legal bar for blacks (again), making allowances for their abhorrent behavior and rampant abuse of women in SA in general. None of these pathetic excuses help this deplorable situation women find themselves in.
How awful. How disgusting. How typical of NuSAns.
sgubhusenkwishi what are you on about? It is interesting to note that it was in the past widely held that there could be no rape within marriage. In fact in some cases when the laws were changed it was even vocally opposed by certain Christian fundamentalist groups. Although they were technically correct in their opposition as the Bible makes it quite clear that a wife is her husband’s property to do with as he chooses. In fact females in general are considered property.
The only truly prosecutable act is one where there are clear signs of force. Otherwise it is invariably just one person’s word against another, and there is no good reason to simply assume the female participant is telling the truth. There have been more than enough cases of false accusations. Although one area where the law does need changing is that a false accusation of rape should carry the same penalty as rape. Relationships are fundamentally messy, consent is very rarely an explicit yes, no-one gets a notarised signed agreement, people do have sex while drunk. Nothing except cases where it can be demonstrated one person was forced to have sex against their will should end up in court. Being lied to or being drunk don’t make it rape.