SA STUDY: I IN 4 MEN ADMITS RAPE
Jun 18th, 2009 by admin
One in four men taking part in a South African study on sexual violence and HIV admitted to carrying out rapes. Out of 1,738 men interviewed in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, 28 per cent admitted they had raped a woman or girl, and three per cent said they had raped a man or boy. More than half of them had raped more than once, and 73 per cent committed their first offence before the age of 20. Professor Rachel Jewkes from South Africa’s Medical Research Council, which conducted the survey, said the high incidence of rape in South Africa could be linked to ideas of masculinity based on gender hierarchy and the sexual entitlement of men. The government has been repeatedly criticised for failing to address the problem.
