An Epidemic of Rapes

Whe

n Charlene Smith found the intruder in her house in Johannesburg, South Africa, she started screaming. But he had a knife, and very soon her hands were tied behind her back with rounds of thick masking tape. Then he raped her. But her ordeal was not over after he left. In a country with one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world, bureaucratic and hospital red tape kept her from getting preventive drugs for 5 1/2 hours. If she had not complained loudly and bitterly, she might never have got the medication. The experience left her stunned and confused: "My left hand is caked in blood. I am wearing a gown and have masking tape in my hair, around my wrists, neck, ankles and knees... I realize I'm standing with my arms at my sides facing the wall, saying quietly over and over, 'I'm alive. I'm alive.'" In the account of her ordeal published in April, she noted that during the hours in which she battled for AIDS medication, an additional 7,200 women and children were raped in South Africa.

Smith, a free-lance journalist and author, is the most eloquent voice in a country in the throes of an epidemic. South Africa recorded 1,263 rapes in 1979. Today the official annual figure is nearly 50,000, but rape-crisis researchers say only 1 in 35 is reported. That means there are more than 1.6 million rapes a year--the highest incidence in the world, according to Interpol. (In 1998 the official South African rate was 104.1 rapes per 100,000 people; in the U.S. the rate was 34.4 per 100,000.) Worse, the cultural and legal attitudes toward rape are practically medieval. In Johannesburg, where the HIV-infection rate is reckoned to be 40% among men in the "rapist" age bracket (20 to 29), many believe raping a virgin will cure HIV. Earlier this month a prominent judge sentenced a 54-year-old man who had raped his 14-year-old daughter to just seven years in prison. Because the crime took place within the family, Judge John Foxcroft explained, little harm was done to the wider community. Furthermore, he said, by the time her father is released in seven years, the girl will have moved out.

The decision incensed anti-rape activists and further energized a movement already fueled by outrage. "Nowhere since the final days of apartheid has there been greater activism in a national social issue," says Smith, 42, who was an antiapartheid journalist of some repute. "Rape victims are speaking out because we are people, not statistics. We have nothing to be ashamed of. [South Africa is] a so-called moral society that does nothing, that should be filled with shame." Indeed, in a country in which race remains hugely sensitive, the debate centers, surprisingly, not on race but on gender equality. An antirape TV ad by actress Charlize Theron, for example, was temporarily pulled because it offended men (see box).

One of Smith's chief complaints about her case was the insensitivity of doctors and clinics. Now some hospitals and medical institutes are opening rape clinics and training staff in rape-crisis management, as well as drawing up protocols for the forensic examination and care of rape victims. Post-rape antiretroviral drugs are, however, still not available in government hospitals. (So far, Smith is HIV-negative, but she will continue tests for at least a year.) "Now old taboos are going, and people are coming forward with family support to report rape," says Dr. Adrienne Wulfsohn, director of the Albertina Sisulu Rape Crisis Center near Johannesburg. But, she adds, "we need to fundamentally change the justice system."

That may be happening. Since 1998, the Criminal Law Amendment Act began providing for more severe punishments for rape, including life sentences for gang rapists. Furthermore, FBI officials from the U.S. are training investigators and prosecutors who will be working in 20 courts devoted to trying sex crimes. These are scheduled to open in April 2000. Meanwhile, Smith refuses to give in to depression. The rapist, she says, "cannot imprison my mind. I have the power." She maintains that "God sent me this challenge. I have to turn this evil into good, and that is why I am speaking out."