Highlight what the challengers are and how we can address it Spiritually?
Analysing this past year in South Africa, very grim statistics emerge which do not bode well for the country's long-term future. Since 1994, some 640,000 people have been murdered; 500,000 females of all ages are raped per year; 6,1-m people are HIV+...
And, medical researchers warn, this is all mainly due to the pervading culture of rape, in which an annual 500,000 females of all ages are raped from the smallest babies to old women, that the HIV-AIDS epidemic has been able to spread like wildfire.
More than 25% of all the females of South Africa, (pop.47-million) even from early babyhood onward, can expect to be raped at least once. Countrywide, last year's latest available statistics from the SA Child Protection Unit noted that some 16,068 children were reported raped last year - out of the total 36,190 rapes reported. A total of 1,400 children were also among the 18,487 people who were murdered last year.
The offical rape statistics are grossly underreported.
Rape treatment experts say some 500,000 rapes occur each year - far higher than the reported rapes which people report to the SA Police Service. see
More than 6,1-million young people now are infected with the HI-virus which leads to deadly AIDS.
The country's young people increasingly die of AIDS and its companion disease, extremely drug-resistant Tuberculosis -- at a rate of at least 350,000 every year.
Khumalo Funeral Homes
South African funeral homes are doing a brisk trade with about 28,000 deaths a month. This is just one Soweto cemetery preparing for each Saturday's steady stream of funerals
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Undertakers are doing a brisk trade and cemeteries are bursting at the seams. There are over 100 funeral homes in Soweto alone. And the one main cause behind these horrific statistics is the culture of violence-driven rape which permeates all of South African life – and always has done.
Before 1994, AIDS was rarely diagnosed among heterosexual black communities. In fact the ANC-regime spokesmen often were heard to describe it as 'the white man's disease'. And the culture of rape which continued after 1994, was being blamed on apartheid by the SA Human Rights Commission.
However, mainly because of this permeating culture of rape, fifteen years later, some 6,1-million mostly black young people are already dying of HIV/AIDS, and many thousands of new infections are notified each month.
The latest reports from the Medical Research Council, Medicins Sans Frontieres and the Treatment Action Campaign warn that most of the child-bearing age population of South Africa is now being infected with HIV-AIDS because of the rape epidemic. Rapists are seeking out increasingly younger victims, so even the smallest little girls now are getting HIV-infections from rapists.
Immediately after apartheid ended in 1994, the country’s violent crime rate also jumped dramatically when the ANC-government replaced most of the previous (white but experienced) police force with inexperienced, new black recruits from the townships.
In this resulting security vacuum, the pre-1994 murder and rape statistics rose within a year, from an annual 5,100 murders/homicides to an average of 43,000 now. Thus far, some 645,000 people have already been killed in criminal violence over the past 15 years.
Contrary to the prevailing propaganda, the statistics show that during apartheid, the annual criminal deaths mostly occurred due to blacks killing blacks, 92%, according to a report by the SA Human Rights Commission. A total of 8,580 (92%) of the 9,325 violent deaths during the period June 1990 to July 1993 were for instance, among mineworkers killing each other in turf wars or rows at male mine hostels and during the (still ongoing) local power battles between the Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party and the Xhosa-dominated African National congress supporters. All these events were blamed on the system of apartheid.
During the same period June 1990 to July 1993, the combined security forces – the SA police and the defence force -- caused a total of 518 deaths of whom 89% were black victims.
Current government denies extent of crime:
According to Dr Elmin Steyn of the Trauma Society of South Africa, the true number of deaths due to crime and violence in South Africa now remain pretty much mystery. And, he warned that trauma victims also are not being helped by 'ridiculous statements by ANC leaders' see ' telling those who have experienced violent crime and voice their concerns, to leave the country.This does not assist in the emotional healing process. Denying our statistics on violent crime is simply a means of avoiding responsibility."
500,000 women raped in South Africa each year
permission: Crime Busters of South Africa
Children also increasingly protest in public against the growing child-rape epidemic in South Africa.
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Medical researchers are all in agreement that the main reason why HIV-AIDS is at such a high level in South Africa is rape. Yet in spite of frequent protests, there seems to be little or no attempt by authorities to try and address this issue publicly, even now that at least 50% of the entire child-bearing next generation is being infected with HIV-AIDS. see
Gang rape is a youth cult in black townships
Gang rape -- referred to as jackrolling -- has become a youth-cult in South Africa: see video of Soweto gangs having fun.
These youth gangs hunt for females to rape throughout the sprawling township of Soweto near Johannesburg with just one aim: to impregnate every female under age 26 in the township. Whenever such rapists are kicked out of their gang, their victims often lodge charges with local community leaders, telling them about the rape, and tribal courts often are held, in which vigilante justice is meted out. See one such incident in 1997, when the country still had more white police and this incident was recorded in the formal records see
Rape is also a form of initiation among the men: new inmates in male prisons are inevitably raped upon arrival by all members of any given cell although most lead heterosexual lifestyles outside of prison.
No condoms
And HIV-infections are spread very rapidly this way medical experts warn: these gang-rapes occur without any kind of lubrication and of course without condoms - and the severe friction causes mucosal tearing and bleeding, making HIV-transfer through the vaginal walls a certainty.
Dr. S. Armstrong, one leading researcher warned in a report published by the National Institutes of Health in the USA, that 'such conditions of unprotected, unlubricated sex (rape) with multiple partners are one important reason why HIV is so rapidly transmitted in South Africa.'
Women in SA get beaten for using contraceptives, are denied condom use:
Researchers K. Wood and R. Jewkes also report on studies among pregnant adolescents in Cape Town that there is 'widespread male coercion and violence within these sexual relationships. The pregnant teens reported 'assault as a regular feature of their relationships.'
“ Men use physical assault to force sexual contact, beating their female partners if they refuse to have sex, or if they are found to be using contraceptives. Women often get infected with HIV because of the culture of gang rape - yet health officials in SA 'refuse to acknowledge sexual encounters such as these as rape'.
Researcher L. de K Ackermann from the department of sociology at the University of the Free State (ackermal@hum.uovs.ac.za) also writes: “it is evident that social factors such as the high rate of rape... and their inability to insist on condom usage, make South African women unable to negotiate the timing of sex and its conditions. They are powerless to protect themselves against HIV-infection.'
Ackermann also slammed the current HIV-prevention campaigns, which don't take into account the fact that females, from a very early age onward, have no control whatsoever over their own sexual lives, warning:
"The rampant spread of this disease can only be stemmed if the subordinate sexual position of woman is acknowledged and addressed,' Ackermann warned.
“The degree to which women are able or not able to control various aspects of their sexual lives is clearly a critical question for health promotion and the prevention of AIDS.
“It is evident that social factors such as the high rate of rape, the unfavourable economic position of women, and their inability to insist on condom usage make South African women unable to negotiate the timing of sex and the conditions under which it occurs. They are…powerless to protect themselves against HIV infection.
"Prevention campaigns often do not take into account the reality of their daily lives and the difficulties they have to gain control over their own sexual lives. The rampant spread of this disease can only be stemmed if the subordinate position of women is acknowledged and addressed.”
"It is these (male-dominated) power relations which determine women's ability or inability to protect themselves against sexually transmitted disease, pregnancy, and unwelcome sexual acts.'
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/264771#ixzz16OL2qVSf
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