A campaign should be launched to dispel the myth that sex with a virgin, child or baby can cure HIV/Aids.
The spate of child rapes in the country indicates the low level of HIV/Aids awareness by those committing such crimes.

Lets face it-- when one man rapes a child he is a sick monster.
but when a group of men, ranging in age from in their twenties to sixties rape a baby!! -- then our whole society is sick! We need to find out where and what this evil is, where it comes from, before we'll know how to fight it.

how do you know which commercials are good if you don't sit and watch everything?

you watch everything at least once, that's how.

you watch them more than once, even if it is only for a milli-second to know which ad it is.

Has it ever occurred to any of the buffoons who (supposedly) run this country to put a full-page advert in every newspaper and endless adverts on prime time TV and radio, to scream in block capitals that sexual intercourse with a virgin does not and will never cure Aids? And that any person stating that it does will face criminal charges?
This vile rumour has been around for more than four years. Why has nothing been done about it? What are our health ministers being paid these huge salaries for? Producing Sarafina I and II presumably.

We, as an organisation dealing with child abuse and neglect, have been inundated by the press and public in the wake of the
recent press reports about the rape of very young babies. We are reeling, both from this and the impact of the reality with which children live in SA.

RAPCAN has assumed the following position in all of this:
South Africa is a country which, both in terms of its own Constitution and in terms of its ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, has committed itself to "putting children first". This commitment to our children is rendered meaningless in the face of what the reality of a childhood in South Africa embodies. Worse, that we have made it can even be considered dangerous if it allows us to claim, as we do in international forums, that we are taking steps to put children first, when the facts are:
Over 25,500 children were the victims of sexual crimes last year (SAPS, 2000 statistics);
Over 40,000 children were the victims of violent crimes last year (SAPS, 2000 statistics);
Over 2 million children go hungry every day (McClain, C:"Starved of Rights" in Children First, vol. 5. no. 39, 2001, pp. 20 - 22)
It is estimated that 10,000 children live or work on the streets (Motala, S: "Children in South Africa: a Contextual Analysis", unpublished paper presented at the National Workshop on Social Security, March 2001.
South Africa has the dubious distinction of being the country with the highest rate of reported rape and abuse of women and children on earth.
South Africa has the highest rate of rape homicide in the world -for every 1,000 reported rapes, there are 17 deaths. This figure is twelve times higher than that of the US, and 40 times higher than in Scandinavian countries.
Violence within South African families is very high with children being either on the receiving end of, or witnessing, extreme violence in a quarter of all intimate relationships.
Violence within South African communities is endemic.
South Africa has the highest rate of new HIV infections in the world.

These facts are not unrelated, and they occur within a context. We do not know why this is happening, or what the answers are. But we do know that our problems are complex and related to factors which include:
centuries of colonialism and decades of apartheid, with the consequent oppression and degradation of huge numnbers of our peoplr;
the large and ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor in SA (we have one of the largest such gaps in the world), and the consequent feelings of powerlessness, hopelessness and despair of an ever-larger and increasingloy deprived population;
the deeply patriarchal and conservative nature of all our various communities, with entrenched cultural and religious convictions and practices which create fertile ground for attitudes which oppress women and children, rendering them increasingly vulnerable to violence.

These facts are symptomatic of a very serious and deep malaise within the psyche of South Africa. We need solutions which are holistic and as complex as the roots of the problem.

We need the committment and involvement of everyone - from the Presidency, various National Departments (Education, Justice, Health, Finance, Correctional Services, SAPS, Social Development) universities and researchers, NGOs, faith-based groups andoridnary people - to find solutions which are neither simple nor linear.

We repeat our call on President Mbeki to convene a National Dialogue on the issue as a matter of urgency, calling together all elements of society to examine what we have become, and how we can change this.

We look with horror at what we have become, and in fear at what we will leave as our legacy if we do not ACT NOW.

Thank you

Unpopular as it might be, the government should put a total ban on reports of rapes in the printed and electronic media.
This will not stop rape, it will still be reported to the police and the law will still take its normal course.
When the sick people out there realise that it's not the "in" thing anymore rape would hopefully become less.

I think we need to move focus from a "victim" or "poor womyn" vibe, and into a : who's doing it, and how are WE all going to stop it. Would like comments from men/womyn as to how we move beyond this crises.