A young woman in Swaziland / eSwatini told a court police beat her up when she went to report she had been raped by her father. She was 14 years old at the time.
She said he had repeatedly
raped her up to three times a day for years. After she reported him to police he
raped her again as punishment.
The case at Pigg’s Peak
Magistrates’ Court was
reported by the Times of Swaziland on Monday (14 January 2019). The newspaper said the
woman who it called Nani (not her real name) reported her father in 2014 when
she was 14 years old.
It said she was allegedly
beaten up by female officers inside the Siphofaneni police station where she
had gone to seek refuge.
‘She alleged that a police
officer hit her using a case register while another officer held her hands,’
the Times reported.
It added, ‘In 2016, Nani
gave birth to a baby girl whom she said was born from the alleged continued
rape by her father. She believes that had the police arrested her father when
she first reported the rape in 2014, she would not have fallen pregnant.’
The court was told the
father allegedly began to rape his daughter when she was aged seven. Nani told
the court that her father often had sex with her three times a day until
February 2018.
The Times reported that the father allegedly raped her again
immediately after she had reported him to police ‘as a way of punishing her’.
The father was eventually arrested by an officer from the Buhleni Police Post. The case continues. The father has yet to testify.
The father was eventually arrested by an officer from the Buhleni Police Post. The case continues. The father has yet to testify.
Rape and sexual abuse of
children is common in Swaziland. In 2013, 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.
A report in Swaziland in
2009 suggested many men in Swaziland believed it was all
right to rape children if their own wives were not giving them
enough sex. 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.’
Recorded figures on rape
have shown Swaziland to have the fourth highest rate of rape in the world. In
2015 a
report from a US organisation ABCNewspoint stated there were
77.5 registered cases of rape among 100,000 people.
Police in Swaziland have
been criticised for their lack of concern over rape victims.
In July 2017 the Swazi Observer
said rape victims reported their plight was not being treated seriously by
police and often they were simply dropped off at hospital and made to find
their own help. It came at a time when 1,082 rapes had been reported in
Swaziland in the previous two years.
The newspaper detailed one
rape victim who reported her case to police and was taken to hospital two hours
later. ‘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?’
See also
Alleged
rape of two-year-old in Swaziland covered up in name of local culture
https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2019/01/alleged-rape-of-two-year-old-in.html
‘Dad rapes daughter to test virginity’
‘Dad rapes daughter to test virginity’
https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2018/05/dad-rapes-daughter-to-test-virginity.html
Custom law lets husbands rape wives
Custom law lets husbands rape wives
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2016/08/custom-law-lets-husbands-rape-wives.html
In Swaziland, child rape not unusual
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2012/12/in-swaziland-child-rape-not-unusual.html
In Swaziland, child rape not unusual
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