At least 68 people are sexually violated in the Cape every day, according to figures released by the Department of Health.
|||Cape Town - Nearly 25 000 people were sexually assaulted in the Western Cape in the past year, according to figures released by the provincial Department of Health. This translates to 68 people being sexually violated in the province every day.
The latest figures – described as “huge and scary” by Medical Research Council senior researcher Dr Naeemah Abrahams – revealed huge disparities between the number of sexual assaults reported to the police and those reported at health care centres.
Department spokeswoman Faiza Steyn said 24 946 people were treated at the province’s four Thuthuzela Care Centres, clinics and hospitals between April 2012 and March this year.
This was more than double the number of sexual offences reported to the SAPS.
The 2011/2012 crime statistics show that the Western Cape had 9 153 sexual offences, while nationally this figure stood at 64 514. Between 2010 and 2011, 9 299 cases were reported to the police, while in the previous year the number stood at 9 678.
Steyn said sexual assault cases presented to the province’s health centres in the past five months stood at 7 517.
Of last year’s total figures of sexual assaults, almost 2 400 involved children under the age of 13, mostly girls, while 449 boys received treatment.
Dr Roy Chuunga, who runs the country’s oldest Thuthuzela centre at GF Jooste Hospital, said that while reportage of sexual assaults and rape had improved compared to what it used to be a decade ago, scientific research still suggested “under-reportage”.
“We are definitely seeing more survivors than what we used to see 10 years ago, but these are not even close to what we should be getting. This suggests that sexual crimes are still under-reported and what we are seeing is just a fraction of the reality out there. There are huge disparities between what is reported to the police and what is reported to health centres.
“Sexual assault victims are more likely to seek health care than reporting the matter to the police,” he said.
Chuunga said there were many factors that determined the under-reporting of sexual assaults.
One major factor was that the majority of perpetrators were known to the victims, and sometimes breadwinners of families.
In the Western Cape, young people between the ages of 13 and 35 were more likely to be raped than any other age group, the figures show.
Abrahams said the latest figures of sexual assaults in the province were frightening given the fact that sexual crimes, particularly rape, were under-reported.
“This is scary and it’s a very huge number for the Western Cape. It means that 68 people are assaulted in the province on a daily basis.”
Abrahams said that while the latest figures were “shocking”, they should be viewed “carefully”.
“It is possible that some people are taken to Thuthuzela centres on suspicion that they had been sexually assaulted.
“Sometimes parents bring their children thinking they had been sexually assaulted, but on medical examination it turns out they are not, and such cases therefore should not be viewed as sexual crimes,” she said.
sipokazi.fokazi@inl.co.za
Cape Argus