Rape crisis turns girls into moms

SOUTH Africa’s rape epidemic has turned girls as young as 10 into mothers, and 60% of the time, the fathers cannot be identified.

The number of girls aged between 10 and 14 years who gave birth between April 2017 and September 2021 increased by 48.7%, according to a report by Amnesty International SA this week.

Amnesty International SA’s executive director, Shenilla Mohamed, said: “It is important to note that these are the number of births, not the number of pregnancies – bearing in mind some pregnancies ended in abortions and miscarriages.”

The organisation said this week it would run a campaign with True Love to highlight this crisis.

Save Our Children health and nutrition programme manager Marumo Sekgobela said they noted a massive spike in child pregnancies in 2020/21 after South Africa went into a hard lockdown for the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sekgobela said at the time there was limited access to health facilities and schools, which usually offered a protective environment for young people.

“We also have to look at the issue of gender-based violence (GBV). These children are between 10 and 14, so somewhere, somehow there was a violation and these cases are not always reported.”

Sekgobela said in 60% of the cases no one knew who had impregnated the girls.

He said there was usually a generational gap in terms of relationships in South Africa, where it was not uncommon for 17-year-olds to date 22-year-old adults.

Given the sharp rise in child and teenage pregnancies during lockdown, it appeared most of the violations happened at home or within their neighbourhoods, he said.

Sex with a child below the age of 12 is always regarded as rape, even if they gave consent. And depending on the circumstances and ages, sex involving older teenagers could also be considered statutory rape.

Of the 1 764 babies born in South Africa on January 1 this year, 65 were born to adolescent girls, of whom the youngest was 13.

Between April 2020 and March 2021, 934 girls between 10 and 14 gave birth in Gauteng alone.

In June, Police Minister Bheki Cele said that 10 818 people had been raped between January and March this year and almost half of the cases had occurred in the homes of the victims or offenders.

The director of The Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children, Shaheda Omar, said the responsibility of addressing the nation’s early-pregnancy crisis lay in educating young boys and men.

“Males simply can’t be out of the equation when it comes to early pregnancies and they must be part of the solution.”

Omar said GBV was also a contributing factor.

“Young girls are not fully aware of their rights in a relationship and are not always able to negotiate their rights and responsibilities.

She also believed young girls and adolescents were not always capable of making informed decisions and the ripple effect of early pregnancies could be dire.

“Many drop out of school, which perpetuates a cycle of poverty and impoverishment,” Omar said.

She said that, in the past, young mothers faced harsh, punitive and judgmental attitudes and ended up fending for themselves.

But now she has seen a deeper understanding of the plight of teenage mothers. Omar also urged for education on various levels to reduce early pregnancies.

Sekgobela agreed and said traditional leaders as well as religious leaders should also be part of the solution.

Luke Lamprecht, head of advocacy for Women and Men Against Child Abuse, said child pregnancies were a massive concern “because it shows the failure of our reproductive health and child protection services, because young women are vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation”.

Early pregnancies continued to rocket.

“There was massive backlash from Freedom of Religion in South Africa when it was suggested that we introduce comprehensive sexual education in school,” he said.

No alternative was suggested, even though it was known that the best way to combat poor sexual health was to introduce a sexual health curriculum, Lamprecht said.

He said the idea that when you educate children about sex you make them have sex was not proven by any research anywhere in the world.

“Actually, the opposite is true. When young people can think about these things, they can make better decisions.”

The Gauteng Department of Social Development (DSD) said as the custodian of the Children’s Act, it had the mandate to protect and develop poor and vulnerable communities and was obligated to be part of the solution in alleviating the crisis of teenage pregnancies.

Spokesperson Feziwe Ndwayana said DSD had several programmes aimed at curbing the crisis of teenage pregnancy and other social ills.

“However, the department contends the responsibility insofar as teenage pregnancies are concerned cuts across several departments.”

She said a co-ordinated response that appreciated the role of all stakeholders was essential and they needed to establish a way forward to ensure greater success in curbing teenage pregnancies.

RAPE in South Africa is systemic and endemic. The country’s annual police crime statistics confirm this. There were 42289 rapes reported in 2019/2020, as well as 7 749 sexual assaults. This translates into about 115 rapes a day.

But policies to deal with the high levels of sexual violence tend to individualise rape in a way that creates the impression that only some men rape. And that they are the “rotten apples” or the “monsters”.

The response from the police – as well as the ANC – underscores the failure to appreciate the systemic nature of the problem.

This was evident at an ANC policy conference where it was clear that ministers and the ANC Women’s League continue to individualise rape. The conference agreed to a draft policy calling for chemical castration for rapists.

This is misplaced and shows a lack of understanding of rape as a social problem.

Research has shown chemical castration does not contribute to reducing levels of rape because it does not change attitudes – or the underlying violent behaviour of rapists. It merely acts as a punishment.

Extensive research has been done on the motives for rape. The overwhelming conclusion is that rape is not about sexual desire. It is about power and an entitlement to women’s bodies.

This was horrifically illustrated in South Africa at the end of July, when eight young women were brutally gang-raped in West Village outside Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg, while filming a music video on a mine dump. The crew were also robbed.

The perpetrators were brazen and felt entitled to inflict the brutal violation on young bodies. What happened in Krugersdorp clearly displays this type of entitlement by violating women’s bodies at gunpoint.

The latest attack also exposes police incompetence to deal with illegal miners who have been terrorising West Village for years. Illegal miners allegedly regularly rape women from West Village, and despite women reporting the rapes, the police were reluctant to investigate.

Preventive measures need to be put in place, such as addressing high levels of crime, including rape with impunity.

And the attitudes of men about women’s bodies and toxic masculinity need to be addressed through state-level interventions, especially in schools to change the socialisation of boys.

The state should also prioritise the upgrading and resourcing of laboratories where forensic DNA evidence is analysed. The huge backlog in South Africa means that victims wait for justice for years, and might never get it.

In 2017, the government was forced to take decisive action on gender-based violence following a series of marches and protests by activists who mobilised under the banner #TotalShutDown. They demanded action against gender-based violence. In the wake of this activism, a National Strategic Plan on Gender Based Violence and Femicide was developed, and is now being rolled out.

This plan rests on six pillars:

• Accountability and leadership.

• Prevention and rebuilding social cohesion.

• Justice, safety and protection.

• Care, support and healing.

• Economic empowerment.

• Research and information management.