After rape, victims still have to face uncaring cops

Sufferers accuse police of fobbing them off with callous remarks

● “Go home, don’t bathe or wash your underwear for the next few days, and come back on Monday.”

“He only used his finger to penetrate you, it’s no big deal.”

“This case is weak, do you really want to put yourself through this?”

These are the phrases women often hear when they try to report rape to police, according to the head of the Western Cape’s busiest Thuthuzela Care Centre.

When she took over the centre at Karl Bremer Hospital in Bellville six months ago, Genine Josias noticed that Monday was its busiest day, and she investigated why women who were raped during the weekend delayed reporting it.

“Patients would say the police told them to come back on Monday, even if the rape happened on a Saturday. Patients were told to go home and not bathe or change underwear until Monday. Sometimes they would say to the patient: ‘It’s the weekend, there are no doctors at the hospital to examine you,’” Josias said.

Rape Crisis spokesperson Zeenat Hendricks said rape survivors did not always know what to do after being assaulted, and many were unaware of the 54 Thuthuzela centres nationwide that offer 24-hour care.

“They don’t know that they can access medical treatment without having to report the incident to the police,” she said.

While the police had “come a long way” in dealing with rape cases, there were still incidents of insensitivity. “Sometimes the police do discourage survivors from reporting, saying things like, ‘This is a weak case’, or ‘It will not go to court’ and ‘Do you really want to put yourself through this?’”

National police spokesperson Col Athlenda Mathe said though sex-crimes investigators received specialised training, officers on duty at police stations had no excuse because their basic training included how to treat victims of gender-based violence.

Josias said insensitive comments, long queues at police stations, interminable court cases and the secondary trauma of testifying were among the reasons women did not report rape.

Many women “come to us just to have an HIV test, STI [sexually transmitted infection] prevention and counselling”, said Josias,

27.6%

PROPORTION OF MEN who told the Medical Research Council in a 2009 survey that they had committed at least one rape

4.6%

INCREASE

in reported sexual offences in latest crime statistics

7%

conviction rate for rape

who headed the Thuthuzela centre in Khayelitsha for more than a decade.

Thuthuzela centres were often the first option for many rape victims, so they recorded much higher numbers of sexual assaults than police stations, she said.

“When we advise women to lay charges, often they refuse. They want nothing to do with the police. Some will tell you they don’t want to go to court, they are just worried about HIV and they want counselling,” said Josias.

According to Stats SA, only one in every nine rapes is reported and only 4% result in prosecution. Josias said the low conversion rate was exacerbated by understaffing at courts, shoddy police work and investigative backlogs of up to six years.

The Karl Bremer centre deals with up to 160 rape cases a month in addition to DNA testing and psychiatric assessments.

It covers about 18 police stations and six family violence, child protection and sexual offences units. About 85% of its patients are women. Of those, one in three are girls under 12. Half of the males treated at the centre are under 12.

Nobuhle Malunga, an advocate with the National Prosecuting Authority who manages the Karl Bremer centre, said it had become steadily busier as rape survivors chose it in preference to a police station.

Numbers had leapt in the past two weeks following the rape and murder of University of Cape Town student Uyinene Mrwetyana.