One-million annual rapes in SA - in a population of 46-million...Only one of 16 rapes reported to cops says "TraumAssist"
source: http://www.excalmed.co.za/traumassist.html
August 20, 2004, - TraumAssist, which says it is the country's largest trauma counseling centre, says 1 million women are raped in South Africa every year. Yet only one in every 16 rapes are reported to police, their research shows. According tothe official police statistics, "only" 52,000 rapes were reported last year -- still the highest in the world per capita.
The centre works with the "Back to Roots Foundation" to teach people rape prevention.
However, their report does not reveal how babies and toddlers could prevent themselves from being raped. Babies are raped in large numbers in South Africa in the horrific tribal belief that "sex with virgins" would cure rapists of Aids... Aubrey Pieterse, the CEO of TraumAssist says the main aim of the training is to "give women a sense of empowerment" so that they can take charge of their lives. He also claims that 72% of the rape victims "know their perpetrators".
TraumAssist can be contacted at 35 Kirschner Road, Westwood, Boksburg, P O Box 26906, East Rand, 1462, South Africa; Tel: , Fax: , Email: excalmed
http://www.sabcnews.com/south_africa/crime1justice/0,2172,86179,00.html
Only 12% of "sex crime cases"at East Rand end in convictions: A mere 12% of the 226 so-called "sex" crime cases which served in four regional courts at the East Rand January 1996-June 2001 ever ended in convictions.Lizel Steenkamp of Beeld Newspaper in Johannesburg reported this finding from the Witwatersrand Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), which revealed the results of its survey of court dockets in the Johannesburg region at a seminar this month. They had examined 4,302 dockets from the Katorus region, which represented 37% of the 11 614 rapes investigated by police between 1 January 1996 to June 2001 at 23 police stations.Shereen Mills of CALS said only 226 of the investigated cases were actually placed on the court rolls at Germiston, Vosloorus and Heidelberg.
Of these 226, a full 142 cases (63%) were scrapped off the roll before the accused could even be asked to plead.
Only 84 cases (37%) were heard -- and in only 28 of these cases, the accused was actually eventually found guilty and sentenced to prison.
In only four of these 84 rape trials, doctors were called in to testify as expert witnesses. No forensic experts or social workers testified in any.
The majority of the 142 scrapped cases were taken off the rolls because: the public prosecutor mysteriously could not be found; the docket had failed to appear in the court records or because the complainant had "withdrawn the case".
Katorus family violence unit best in the country... And -- the researcher took pains to point out to the journalist -- Katorus 's specialist police unit for sexual offences and family violence is one of the country's best-equipped -- with sufficient vehicles and the best-trained personnel...
Captain M Phore of the Katorus specialist unit admitted that their conviction figures were very low. "Many cases take up to three years to wind their ways through the courts, and many of the dossiers simply disappear there," he said.
For the unabridged version please access:
http://www.sabcnews.com/south_africa/crime1justice/0,2172,86179,00.html
http://groups.msn.com/crimebustersofsouthafrica/rapeattacks.msnwhttp://www.news24.com/Beeld/Suid-Afrika/0,,3-975_1570922,00.html
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39845
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