NOT Fit to Govern 2

Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation
South Africa

"...The number of violent crimes against women and children has risen dramatically since the ANC came into power in 1994, says National Party. The number of rapes in South Africa had increased by 23% since 1996..."

"...Health officials in South Africa say adolescent girls are twice as likely to become infected with HIV as boys, a reflection of increased sexual activity, often unwilling, with older men. Mamelato Leopeng, an AIDS counselor at the Esselen Street Health Center in Johannesburg, said about one-third of the HIV-infected men she encounters have bought into the belief that sex with a virgin will cure them, and they are further convinced that the needed "dose of purity" is rendered ineffective with a condom. (Dean E. Murphy, "Africa’s Silent Shame," Los Angeles Times, 16 August 1998)

The desire to "get back at women" is the most common reaction among men when they are first told they are HIV-positive, says Mamelato Leopeng, an AIDS counselor at the Esselen Street Health Center in Johannesburg, says. HIV-infected men have even targeted young girls as an act of vengeance. In a case reported by South African police in May 1998, members of a gang of unemployed men in Soweto were allegedly raping schoolgirls, telling their victims that they were HIV-infected and didn't want to die alone. (Dean E. Murphy, "Africa’s Silent Shame," Los Angeles Times, 16 August 1998)"