Abuse of infant shocks expert

‘There’s just a

HOW do you rehabilitate a mother or father who raped or abetted the molestation of their own infant? It’s a question that has left one of South Africa’s top forensic psychologists stumped.

“I don’t know what could be done with this person for rehabilitation,” said Gérard Labuschagne, former head of the South African Police Services investigative psychology section.

A Meadowlands mother was convicted for assisting a man to rape her two-month-old daughter, and subsequently lying to authorities to protect his identity, thus far preventing him from being arrested.

While the State believes the man responsible for the rape was the woman’s husband, it’s unclear if it was his daughter.

Labuschagne said that in similar cases of infant abuse, it would typically not be the biological father who would commit the crime.

From his experience, it would usually be a spurned lover – someone unrelated to the baby – perhaps in a revenge attack against the mother.

“But when it’s your own child, you have to bring in the aspects of incest alongside the paedophilia… You also have to take into account the (physical) damage that is caused is so much more severe than with even a slightly older child,” he said.

“There’s just a level of sexual sadism. It’s horrific,” Labuschagne added.

All involved in such cases should also be charged with attempted murder because of the damage an infant would likely suffer.

Labuschagne said that in such cases of a mother allowing such a crime, one would have to look at the relationship between her and the perpetrator. “Does she in general acquiesce to his demands? Was there an abusive relationship?”

In such cases, recommendations of rehabilitation were incredibly difficult.

“Cases like these are so rare that trying to analyse this behaviour would be speculating,” he said.

The Soweto mother will be sentenced this week in the Johannesburg High Court.

On November 6, 2016, a neighbour found the mother screaming in her room in Meadowlands as the baby struggled to breathe. While the mother insisted the baby had fallen off the bed, on being taken to hospital, it was discovered the child’s genitals had been severely damaged and traces of semen were found.

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