The horrific rape of a 17-year-old Soweto
girl made international headlines recently. Media used the incident to
highlight the extremely high numbers of rape in South Africa, with the common
observation that more than 56 000 rapes were recorded by police in South Africa
in 2011.
Noxolo Nogwaza was
raped, stoned and stabbed to death in the township of KwaThema, east
of Johannesburg. Two years previously another young KwaThema woman, Eudy Simelane, was raped and murdered. In September this year a 70-year-old woman was raped
in her home in front of her grandchildren in KwaZulu-Natal. The grandmother was
raped by a 25-year-old man.
Rape statistics are notoriously
unreliable, but there is consensus that the rate of violence against women in
South Africa is extremely high. There has also been substantial coverage
on the causes of South Africa’s rape statistics, which in some of the coverage
is referred to as a rape crisis.
The Department of Justice estimates that one out of every four South
African women is a survivor of domestic violence. South Africa has one of
the world’s most progressive Constitutions in the world and a strong
legislation that protect women´s rights. It is the third country with most
female parliamentarians, after Rwanda and Sweden. Yet, the Constitutional
provisions for women have made little progress in paper to practice. Although
women have more rights, and are in a higher degree represented in different
institutions, violence against women is very common.
Watch Shift on 6 November 2012 where we discuss what
society can do to improve and increase the safety of women in our communities.
Write to us at shift@sabc.co.za
and join us on facebook. We ask; do SA men lack respect for their women?
Answer Yes or No to Shift on SABC1: FACEBOOK
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