Rape
victims in Swaziland say their plight is not being treated seriously by police
and often they are simply dropped off at hospital and made to find their own help.
This
comes at a time when there have been 1,082 rapes reported in Swaziland since
2015. Swaziland is said to have the fourth highest rate of rape in the world.
The
trauma associated with reporting a rape case is causing some people to turn
back and deal with their ordeal on their own, local media reported.
A nurse at
the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital told the Sunday Observer newspaper in Swaziland (2 July 2017). ‘Children,
even adults, leave after waiting for assistance for hours and I cannot say I
blame them.’
The
newspaper detailed one rape victim who reported her case to police and was
taken to hospital wo hours later.
The
newspaper reported, ‘On arrival, she was dropped off at the emergency gate from
whence she had to find her way through the hospital after the police pointed
her to the general direction.’
Not
knowing the correct procedure she waited in line to be examined by a nurse. The
Observer reported, ‘In the midst of
the patients waiting to see nurses was a schoolgirl, in full uniform, dirty and
beaten up, also an alleged survivor of sexual assault. It was only after
several hours of waiting, in her bloody and mud caked clothes that the survivor
was assisted and taken to the Gender Based Violence (GBV) Unit ,which was
recently constructed.’
A teacher
at a primary school in the outskirts of Manzini told the newspaper she had
assisted a pupil who had been attacked on her way to school and took her to
hospital. ‘The process of getting the rape reported is traumatising the
survivors,’ the teacher said. ‘The confusion and helplessness that comes with
such violation is further confounded by the process that it takes for one to
get assistance.’
The
teacher added, ‘On reaching the hospital, having secured transport on a taxi,
we were told to go to the police station first in order to enable her to be
attended as assault and rape cases only get attention after being reported to
the police.’ She said they were sent from one police post to another and
finally had to wait two hours before being taken to hospital.
The
teacher said, ‘If the experience was this traumatic for me as a person
assisting, how much more those who go to the police without assistance and get
haphazard reception?’
According
to the National Commissioner of Police Isaac Magagula 1,082 rape cases were
reported in Swaziland since 2015. He told a gender based violence campaign
organised by the Catholic Church Commission for Justice and Peace (Caritas) in
Hlatikulu on 1 July 2017 rape could be tackled by doing away with apathy and
the culture of silence which fuelled such crimes.
Rape is
common in Swaziland and often goes unreported. Rape of
a wife by her husband is legal in Swaziland under Indigenous Swazi Law and
Custom. A man can also legally rape his lover. This is contained in a document called The Indigenous Law and Custom of the
Kingdom of Swaziland (2013) compiled by Professor Frances Pieter Whelpton,
a Professor of Law at the University of South Africa and delivered to King
Mswati III.
The Times of Swaziland reported (3 August 2016) , ‘Under Chapter 7,
which addresses offences (emacala) in Swaziland, rape is said to be committed
only if the woman forced is not the man’s wife or lover.’
In 2015, a report
from A US organisation ABCNewspoint
stated that Swaziland had the fourth highest rate of rape in the world. It said
there were 77.5 registered cases of rape among 100,000 people.
Rape and sexual abuse of
children is common in Swaziland. In 2008, Unicef reported that one in three girls in Swaziland were sexually abused, usually by a
family member and often by their own fathers - 75 percent of the perpetrators
of sexual violence were known to the victim.
Many men in Swaziland
believed was all right to rape children if their own wives were not giving them enough
sex. In 2009, men who were interviewed during the making of the State of the Swaziland Population
report said they ‘“salivate” over children wearing skimpy dress codes because
they are sexually starved in their homes.’
See also
CUSTOM LAW LETS HUSBANDS RAPE WIVES
IN SWAZILAND, CHILD RAPE NOT UNUSUAL
No comments:
Post a Comment