South Africa: 2,000 rapes in a year

The expression “reported” cases is important, because, according to South African police authorities, the real figure will be much higher, at least the double. The media attention is very high in this country at the moment after two horrendous rapes of baby girls (5 months and 9 months) by adult males, leaving the babies with severe injuries to the intestine, colon and genital organs, and almost certainly HIV positive.

Such attacks are carried out by males with the HIV virus, who believe that they will be protected against contracting AIDS through having sexual relations with a virgin. The South African Social development Minister, Zola Skweyiya, has expressed her horror at the perpetuation of this myth.

In the latest incident, the 13-year-old schoolgirl was walking home after a party when she was dragged into a public lavatory by five males, who gang-raped her after coshing her over the head with bricks, leaving her with serious haemorrhages and a strong possibility of having become infected with HIV.

One in nine people have the AIDS virus in South Africa, another Sub-Saharan country where the disease has reached epidemic proportions. The ignorance demonstrated in the motive for these attacks is a clear sign as to how the disease spread so quickly through these countries. Instead of using a condom, certain males prefer to rape a virgin, even if this means a five-month-old baby.

In the fight against the moral decadence which has characterised the South Africa of the African National Congress, there are growing calls for the death penalty to be reinstated.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru