Why Did South Africa’s Incidence of Rape Increase After Apartied?

Executive Summary

• South Africa’s incidence of reported rape rose after apartied.
• This has been attributed to better statistics, but is that true?

Introduction

It has been difficult for some to explain the rise in reported rapes in South Africa after the end of apartied. This article evaluates one hypothesis.

Our References for This Article

See this link if you want to see our references for this article and other related Brightwork articles at this link.

Why Did South Africa’s Incidence of Rape Increase After Apartied?

One explanation for this rise in reported rape is found in the following quotation.

The notion that rape in South Africa is a specifically post-apartheid problem is dismantled by Gqola, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand.

It is natural that rape statistics would rise after 1994, she writes, because black women felt more comfortable to come forward. Police stations under apartheid had previously been deeply unfriendly places. – The Guardian

Police Protection for Rapes Under Apartied Versus Under the ANC

The following quotation was used to describe how rape was managed under apartied.

Under an apartheid system, where only the rape of white women was prosecuted, and gender and race issues could diffuse the black struggle, there were difficulties in mobilizing support to end violence against black women. There was social acceptance that rape of black women was part of life. Police statistics on the incidence of rape were notoriously unreliable, because only a small percentage of cases are reported to police, and many women would be ashamed to admit to marital abuse, including rape. – NCBI

Ok, so under apartied, the white-controlled government places little emphasis on prosecuting the rape of black women.

Let us see what the situation was after apartied.

Moreover, 1 in 3 women can be expected to be raped in her lifetime (Moffat 2006, 129). These shocking statistics are worse still by the fact that many sexual attacks in South Africa are not reported; the Medical Health Council suggest only 1 in 9 attacks are (Rape Crisis, Cape Town Trust 2015). The Women’s Health Project, 1992, survey showed 50-60% of marriages involved physical and sexual violence (Hassim 2009, 66), showing violence against women is a normalised part of society, including in intimate relationships.

Additionally, just one in four hundred rapes in South Africa end in a conviction due to the incompetence of the police, often losing evidence (Anderson 2000, 793). In Soweto, between 5-50% of reported rapes go to court but out of that number only 7-13% result in a conviction (Jewkes and Abrahams 2002, 1232). Moreover, there are suggestions the police will take bribes by the accused rapist to make the charges ‘disappear’. In Southern Johannesburg, it is estimated 1 in 20 pieces of evidence is lost in a fraudulent manner (Jewkes and Abrahams 2002, 1232). It is, therefore, no surprise women are not inclined to report sexual abuses and why sexual violence is still so prevalent within South African society. – SA History

And what is surprising is how inadequate South Africa’s record-keeping is, as is explained in the following quotation. This means that the rapes reported are just the tip of the iceberg of sexual violence in South Africa.

However, recall that South African law enforcement is still very unresponsive and black South Africans frequently suppress accusations of rape. And this is long after apartied has passed. Yet, in the quote from Gqola, the increase in reported rapes was attributed to policing being more “friendly.’ The quotes regarding policing in South Africa since apartied does not support this claim.

Furthermore, there is other evidence that the black culture in South Africa is resistant to prosecuting for rape and that it is corrupt, and police officers can be paid to make rape allegations go away.

Current South African Black Culture is to Blame?

One perfect example of this is found in the trial of Jakob Zuma, who was a previous president of South Africa, who was tried for rape. During this trial, Zuma claimed he was essentially obligated to rape a friend’s daughter following Zulu (Zuma is part of the Zulu tribe) culture.

Furthermore, Zuma was strongly supported throughout the trial, and his accuser was faced with first entering witness protection and later fleeing the country.

This is explained in the following quotation.

Outside the downtown Johannesburg courtroom, his supporters, who had previously burned an effigy of his accuser, wore T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “100 percent Zuluboy.” Many were women.

Yet Ms. Gasa, who is writing a book about South African history, said Mr. Zuma was likely to retain broad support in parts of South African society, if only because much of the population remains deeply patriarchal, whatever the Constitution and laws state. – New York Times

Here we have the statement that…

“Much of the population remains deeply patriarchal.”

What is the more direct translation of that sentence?

It is that black South Africans do not put a very high priority on defending women from rape. And if a politician who one likes — as in Jakob Zuma is accused of rape, a large percentage of South African blacks don’t want him to be prosecuted. And it is worse than this, and this is explained in the following quotation.

The woman was vilified by Zuma’s supporters during a gruelling court case that ended on Monday when the judge handed down a not-guilty verdict to the former number two.

Her mother’s home in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province was burgled twice after she laid the rape charge against Zuma, who was a friend of her late father, also a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle.

A friend of the woman, known as Khwezi because her identity was protected by the court, had earlier said it was no longer safe for her to live in South Africa. – MG

If an accuser has to be placed in witness protection for bringing a rape charge against the president, this means there is a good chance her life was at risk. Are those that would kill Khwezi doing so because their parents had to live under apartied?

Overall South African blacks have a long history of retaliating against those that bring charges of rape. This is being done for personal gain, not because their parents lived under apartied.

The ANC, Incompetence and Record Keeping

As the ANC took over control of South Africa, it has become more of a typical African country, which means less record keeping. The ANC is broadly considered incompetent and unable to govern, and an excellent example of why is found in the following quotation.

Minister Zulu’s statements showcase what is wrong: even with the best intentions most officials in charge of South Africa’s governmental affairs simply lack the capacity to fullfil the needs of their job properly. Good intentions alone won’t help, when you are dealing with challenging, complex issues that require a structured approach based on an identification of the core problems. Officials need to be chosen based on merit, by assessing their intellectual capacity. Tertiary qualifications are not sufficient, since they are often not a reflection of above average cognitive capacity and abstract thinking ability. – Annonymous Comment

I found this same problem with how the ANC replaced knowledgeable people in the utility, called Eskom, leading to the decline in the power system, as I cover in the article How South Africa’s Decline Mirrors the Decline of Eskom.

Therefore, it is doubtful that the police force kept statistics and the white-run government during apartied. This means that Gqola entirely left this out of her analysis.

The Decline of the South African Police Department

Every institution in South Africa has declined since the end of apartied. Here is one quote on the decline of the South African police department.

In the last five years, the number of cases of aggravated robbery recorded by the police rose by almost 40%. Meanwhile the number of convictions for aggravated robbery rose by just 5%. – The Conversation

How Black Women The US on Stand in the Way of Restricting Rape

Black Africans are not the only blacks who interfere with policing and restricting rape. Blacks in the US constantly complain about the high levels of sexual harassment and assault that they face. A few things that they leave out is that the vast majority of these things come from black men. Secondly, US black women have low levels of reporting rape, but not because they do not have access to the US’s legal system or could not successfully follow complaints have them followed up by a non-corrupt police department (something South African blacks cannot do), but because their own culture pressures them not to.

How Black Women Have Been Struggling to Blame Overall Society and Call It Racism

US blacks have been struggling mightily for some time to figure out a way to blame their own cultural problems with rape, on the broader white community. They have not found a successful strategy to do this. One of the ways they hide the high levels of assault by black men is by declaring their assaults, but by being very careful to never mention the race of the person who assaulted them. Their preference obviously would be to be able to point the finger at other races for assaulting them, and then discuss how this is due to endemic white supremacy, which would allow for race scamming.

The only problem with this is that it is very infrequent for other races to rape or even harass black women. However, it is very common for black men to sexually assault white women.

When Oprah Winfrey began producing a documentary on the rape allegations against Russell Simmons, she was threatened by many in the black community as it reinforced “racial stereotypes” about black men. She was told to not embarrass the black community by bringing down a powerful black man. Oprah promptly cratered to the pressure and took her name off of the documentary.

Why Create a Documentary on a Black Rapist, When One Could Cover a White Rapist?

Many blacks asked why Oprah was creating a documentary on a black man who was an alleged serial rapist when she could have instead create a documentary on a white man. This is the same pressure that is brought to bear on black women who are rape victims to not report rape. Reporting rape in the black community is said to “reinforce racial stereotypes.”

Oprah “stands in support” of these women, but did not follow through. Black women have a long-established pattern of not reporting rapes by black men.

The woman being interviewed is very clear, black men and also women have pressured her not to critique and press charges against a powerful black man. These same blacks would be 100% calling out rape if the rapist was white. 

Conclusion

It is doubtful that the incidence of reported rapes increased after apartied due to more black women being willing to report rapes. If anything, due to the degradation of the South African police, most likely even fewer rapes are being recorded than during apartied. This means that the incidence of rapes has increased as the rule of law has declined in South Africa. Furthermore, the black African culture creates many barriers to reporting and prosecuting rape. This is not inherited from white or European culture, as this is not part of white or European culture. Many western liberals assume that stopping rape is the same priority for all other cultures as it is in western societies. This is a blind spot on the part of these people. I cover in the article How Islam Constantly Endorses and Enables Rape and Rapists.

The result of the end of apartied in South Africa and the transition to the ANC’s black rule has meant that far more South Africans have been raped since the end of apartied than if apartied had never ended.