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Lack of post-rape medical care – still no action from health department more than 2 years later

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Nearly 2.5 years later, there has been no transparency regarding a concrete timeline for when critical services will be available to womxn in Diepsloot. Picture: iStock/Gallo Images
Nearly 2.5 years later, there has been no transparency regarding a concrete timeline for when critical services will be available to womxn in Diepsloot. Picture: iStock/Gallo Images

In Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics and violence against women of colour, Kimberlé Crenshaw demonstrates the direct ways in which class, race and gender shape the structural and political aspects of violence against black womxn in a patriarchal society.

Crenshaw argues that gender and class oppression, coupled with racial discrimination, contribute significantly to black womxn’s social and political marginalisation.

Diepsloot provides a poignant example – it is about 40km from the Johannesburg city centre and financial hub and it deeply lacks public infrastructure, including transport and municipal services.

One service that is lacking is the provision of post-rape medical care by the health department.

This is especially critical in Diepsloot where academic research revealed extremely high levels of gender-based violence.

Research conducted by the University of the Witwatersrand and Sonke Gender Justice revealed that 56% of men surveyed in Diepsloot admitted to committing some form of physical or sexual violence against a womxn in the past 12 months, with a third using both physical and sexual violence.

A majority (60%) had enacted multiple instances of violence.

There are two public clinics in Diepsloot. Neither is equipped with the facilities and staff to provide post-rape medical care.

This includes access to post-exposure prophylaxis treatment, preventing the possible contraction of HIV, and the resources necessary to obtain forensic DNA which could be used as crucial evidence in a trial.

We demand that the department treat this issue with the urgency it deserves and publicise its plans to provide post-rape medical care in Diepsloot
Rethabile Mosese

What compounds the problem is that the specialised unit responsible for transporting a victim from Diepsloot for post-rape medical care, the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit (FCS), is more than 40km away.

As a result, victims must sometimes wait for extended periods before an FCS unit member arrives and the closest healthcare facilities that provide post-rape medical care to victims from Diepsloot are between 20km to 45km away.

The longer a victim has to wait to access post-rape medical care, the higher the possibility of crucial evidence being contaminated or lost.

This leads to fewer convictions of sexual offenders and violates the victim’s right to access justice.

Additionally, the distance a victim has to travel back to these healthcare facilities for follow-up appointments, and the corresponding costs, often serve as a barrier for them to attend the appointments.

Rethabile Mosese

The lack of access to post-rape medical care in Diepsloot ultimately contributes to the broader culture of silence that exists around sexual violence.

As women and children either fail to receive the medical assistance they require, or encounter the challenges detailed above, they experience secondary victimisation.

As a result, they might discourage others from reporting.

This inadvertently leads to a decrease in reporting rates and a lack of accountability by perpetrators of violence.

In July 2017, when this issue first received media attention, the health department indicated that there were plans in place to ensure the provision of post-rape medical care in Diepsloot.

The department’s then head of communication said the department was working on finding solutions to the problem.

He assured the public that “a team of clinical forensic specialists will be visiting the clinic [in Diepsloot] to assess the office space with the view of finding a solution to this matter and making alternative arrangements”.

However, nearly two and half years later and despite ongoing commitments from various officials from the department, there has been no transparency regarding the plan itself or a concrete timeline for when these critical services will be available in Diepsloot.

We demand that the department treat this issue with the urgency it deserves and publicise its plans to provide post-rape medical care in Diepsloot, within reasonable time frames.

Mosese is a senior staff attorney at Lawyers against Abuse


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