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Africa Policy E-JournalSouth Africa: Women and Violence This posting contains a press release from Human Rights Watch Women's Project and Human Rights Watch/Africa, on the South African criminal justice's failure to provide adequate response to women victims of violence. Of related interest, The Global Women in Politics Program (G-WIP) of The Asia Foundation and Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) are pleased to announce that they are seeking applications for 15 individuals to participate in a regional Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop on advocacy and political organizing to be held December 5-16, 1997 in Harare, Zimbabwe. The purpose of the TOT is to strengthen national and regional training capacities and materials to assist African NGOs to be effective advocates and citizen organizers. Applications are due August 20, 1997. For more information and to obtain application forms, please contact Heather Robinson, GWIP-TAF, 1990 M St NW, Ste 610, Washington DC 20036; Tel:(1)202-223-5268/Fax:(1)202-785-4582; e-mail: tafwip4@igc.org; or Joana S. Foster, WiLDAF, PO Box 4622, Harare, Zimbabwe; tel: (263-4)752105/751189; Fax: (263-4)781186; e-mail: WILDAF@Mango.zw.
South Africa Medico-Legal System fails women victims of violence Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental organization established in 1978 to monitor and promote the observance of internationally recognized human rights in Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and among the signatories of the Helsinki accords. The Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project was established in 1990 to research and investigate state-sponsored and state-tolerated violence and discrimination against women. Dorothy Q. Thomas is director and Kathleen Peratis is chair of the advisory committee. Its Africa division was established in 1988 to monitor and promote the observance of internationally recognized human rights in sub-Saharan Africa. Peter Takirambudde is the executive director and William Carmichael is the chair of the advisory committee. Website Address: http://www.hrw.org
(New York, August 8, 1997)--Women victims of rape or assault in South Africa face a criminal justice system that is too often unable or unwilling to assist them in their efforts to seek redress. The police are frequently callous or disinterested in their treatment of women and the court system is little better. Of equal concern is the fact that while medical evidence is crucial to the investigation and prosecution of rape or sexual assault, few medical personnel are trained properly to collect and interpret such evidence. In Violence against Women and the Medico-Legal System in South Africa, released to coincide with South African women's day, Human Rights Watch calls on the South African government to intensify its efforts to protect women from violence and to improve the state's response to such abuses, with particular attention to the medico-legal system. "Despite recent efforts at reform, South Africa continues to fail its women," charges Dorothy Q. Thomas, Director of the Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project. "Too often, the treatment they receive when they try to report rape or other abuse simply traumatizes them further, without offering them any hope of punishing their attackers." Of the 27,056 rapes reported in 1993, only 8,998 were prosecuted; of the cases brought to court, 4,753 resulted in convictions, just 17.5 percent of the total. Since 1993, the number of rapes reported has nearly doubled, to 50,481 in 1996; of these 21,863 were prosecuted, yet only 4,100 led to a conviction or 8.1 percent of the cases reported. While the percentage of cases prosecuted has increased, the rate of conviction has fallen. These worsening figures demand urgent attention. Women who wish to pursue a charge against their assailant are usually examined by a doctor, in most cases a state-employed district surgeon, and obtain a report of their injuries. Although no claim of rape is invalid for lack of such medical evidence, it often offers the only non-testimonial support of a woman's case and as such, can be crucial to its prosecution. Currently, in South Africa a handful of specialized medico-legal clinics offer a dedicated and technically excellent service. However, in most cases, the doctors who carry out the medical examination of a woman (or child) who has been raped have received no training in this part of their practice. Additional problems include the following: District surgeons often do not properly document medical evidence for use in court, and incomplete medical records for rape cases are commonplace.
Compounding these problems, police who are charged with referring and transporting women to district surgeons often fail to do so. This not only adds to already crippling potential delays, but given the inaccessibility of many medico-legal clinics and the costs of transportation to them, may effectively deny poor women in particular access to such services. Moreover, if a rape case actually reaches court, police and prosecutors are usually unable to evaluate or present medical evidence effectively to a court, and neither magistrates nor judges are likely to be able to make up for these deficiencies with their own training. For the women involved, therefore, the price of reporting a sexual assault may be hours of travel and waiting for attention, unsympathetic treatment from police and medical personnel, and a negligible chance of seeing a known perpetrator convicted. Moreover, having finally been examined for such abuse, women must still go elsewhere for its treatment, as medical legal work usually does not include any treatment for the physical or psychological consequences of sexual assault. The South African government has taken a number of steps to improve the response of the criminal justice system to violence against women. On August 9, the Department of Justice, which ran a campaign on violence against women between November 1996 and March 21, 1997, is scheduled to publish a major new set of guidelines for handling sexual assault cases, addressed to all professionals in the criminal justice system, including district surgeons. Health care is also undergoing radical reform, while the role of the health professionals, district surgeons in particular, in the human rights violations of the past has come under scrutiny from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Human Rights Watch welcomes these developments and commends the government of South Africa for these and other key steps it is taking to improve the state response to violence against women. However, if the history of impunity for such abuse is to be more effectively curtailed, greater attention must be given to current flaws in the medico-legal system. We offer the following series of detailed recommendations for further improvement of the criminal justice system in this crucial area: General:
District surgeons/medico-legal practitioners:
Specialized curricula in clinical forensic medicine for medical students should be developed by the universities offering medical training and made compulsory for all medical students, with practical expertise in a medico-legal clinic a requirement of such courses; a qualification in clinical forensic medicine, similar to that for forensic pathologists, should also be developed and made available to those doctors who wish to specialize in this area of work. Police: Police investigating officers handling sexual assault and rape cases should specialize in such investigations and be trained in the issues surrounding violence against women and the use of medical and other forensic evidence. The courts:
The collection and analysis of medico-legal evidence:
Collection and dissemination of information on violence against women:
Documents previously distributed in the e-journal are
available on the Africa Action website: To be added to or dropped from the e-journal subscription list, write to e-journal@africaaction.org. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the source mentioned in the posting.
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Africa Policy E-Journal
