Rape Culture in South Africa: Helping Anene Booysen

Anenes foster mother holds her photo at her funeral

I wrote a few days about the brutal gang rape of Anene Booysen, the 17-year-old South African woman who was so horrendously traumatized that her family is requesting the media not release the details. Since then, I've been thinking a lot about how a culture of rape contributes to, well, a prevalence of rape, and learning about what a huge problem this is in South Africa. I've also been looking for some tangible ways to support the situation in South Africa specifically. Read on for what I've found.

Part II: Rape Culture in South Africa

A baby girl born in South Africa has a higher chance of experiencing rape in her lifetime than of learning how to read. Statistics disagree about whether it's one in three women who are raped, or one in two women, and if it's every  36, 26, or 17 seconds that a woman is raped. The country has the highest rate of child and baby rape in the world, which stems from the myth that sex with a virgin will a man of HIV or AIDS. (This type of rape occurs every two minutes in South Africa.) An explosive survey revealed that many men find gang rape a good way to experience male bonding, and that while violence against women is by far the most prevalent, one in ten men have been raped by other men. There's also this idea that you can "cure" a lesbian by raping her, leading to the surge of "corrective rape," leading to more than 10 lesbian women being raped every week in an attempt to "turn" her into a heterosexual.

Whatever the real statistics are, the problem is an epidemic.

It seems that South Africa is an immensely patriarchal society, and women are often blamed for rape. Many men view rape as a way to assert themselves as men, especially if they are bullied for not being circumcised or having to do "women's work" around the house, an example of which you can read here.

The standards of thought create a stigma against rape, which causes 8 out of 9 women to not report their rape to the police. 76% of rapists who are accused will never be prosecuted for their crimes. Of the 24% who are, most of them end up in jail because of surviving child victims telling their stories on the stand. But for men who rape adult women, the rate of incarceration drops to just 3%.

There are many complicating factors to the South African rape culture. There is an emotional, social, and economic legacy of apartheid's incredibly brutal racial segregation to consider.
Racist Apartheid-era legislation around rape wasn't updated until 2007. The country still has a lot of work to do in terms of overcoming racism due to the long years of divisive white rule. Poverty complicates the issue, for in a country where over half of the residents live in poverty and 5.6 million people live with HIV and AIDS, the highest number of any country in the world, problems are bound to arise. Like the very big problem of whahttp://fishonbikes.blogspot.com/2013/01/rape-is-never-joke-ever.htmlt happened to Anene Booysen.


So, what can we do about it?

Unfortunately, unless you live in South Africa and can take a more active role (volunteer, intern, and join a twitter campaign at the leading Cape Town rape center), my American readers will have to settle for things that are a little more passive. But there are always ways to help.

Donating money to good organizations is one of those ways. A reader put me in touch is an amazing organization called the Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust, which counsels victims, does training and awareness programs, and works for legal reforms. They are currently running a "1,000 Hearts" campaign to provide services that empower rape victims. For 100 South African rand, or $11.26 American dollars, you can buy a heart and provide, and with that small amount of money, allow the organization to provide a counselling session for a rape survivor, a high school workshop session, and an hour of counselling over their telephone helpline. I'm betting we can all scrounge up $11.26. Click here to donate.

You could also donate to the Olive Leaf Foundation, which works in South Africa on poverty issues, from community development to whttp://benjamin.joffe-walt.com/breakthrough-anti-rape-campaign-enters-the-national-conversation-in-south-africa/ellness to children and you programs.

Sign up for Change.org campaigns. I know, I know - they clog up your inbox and many people doubt they even have any real effect. But a recent Change.org petition about the "corrective rape" practice in South Africa became the organization's most successful, wide-spread campaign yet, and helped create a national conversation about corrective rape. There are no petitions out there about rape in South Africa now, but I'll be on the look out. And if I can figure out a tangible request from the South African government, yours truly may start one herself.

And finally, we can bear witness. We can simply remember the name of Anene Booysen, and follow the trial of her rapists, who she was able to name before she died of her wounds.  Bearing witness is more than just learning about an event and remembering it. It means listening actively, listening deeply, and giving another human being total and absolute recognition. It means thinking about the horror that she went though, thinking about the pain of her mother, thinking about the fact that while what happened to her was uncommonly gruesome, something similar has happened 7 times since you read this post.

And use her name. I've said this before and I'll say it again: don't define her by her rape. Many news outlets don't use her name, and refer to her simply as a 17-year-old victim. She was a victim, but she was also a living breaking girl who did a lot more in her life that suffer a rape a mutilation. Anene Booysen. The first name is easy. The last name is a Dutch name, and probably said like "Boy-sen." Use her name, tell her story, and donate $11.26 to help surviving victims and prevention efforts. Let's show South Africa that Americans care, that we are all one humanity, and that they are not alone.

Look for more on rape culture in the coming days. And as always, if you find ways to help, please do share them.