PART IV DATA ANALYSIS
CHAPTER 8 FORCED SEX, RAPE AND SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
8.4 WHY RAPE IS COMMON AND INCREASING
Boys engaged in wide-ranging discussions concerning reasons why rape is common and increasing. These are presented from macro – level explanations and moving to individual – level explanations. It is interesting to note that boys did not point to any general breakdown in social norms as a result of community dislocation as a result of armed conflict, although a few boys stated that „rape was hardly noticed‟ a decade or so ago. Part of upsurge in rape is the predatory behaviour of mature men who were previously constrained by social conventions rules.
There was a strong view that the national government, as represented by law and courts was failing and thus contributing to rape. As aspect of this which has been noted previously is that situations can be manipulated to entrap a man and his family and, because the law favours girls, it encourages such things to continue. A version of this is that money is paid by the alleged perpetrator to the victim‟s family:
Damas: Rape is increasing in our homeland, because of the government‟s failure to implement laws that it itself established. You find the law stipulating that a man who rapes get a fine and be imprisonment for certain years. Now it is as if the government wrote down it, and keeps silent. When people perpetrate rape it keeps silent, so people keep on perpetrating it. (Rural boys, Karhanda)
Aimer: The increase of sexual violence is also due to the government no application of laws that it has elaborated. If the government can punish the perpetrators, sexual violence can diminish. (Rural boys, Karhanda)
Joseph: The laws they ratified in our country, instead of eradicating rape, are increasing it.
Why is that? It is the way they apply them. It now happens that when two people are in conflict, one of these persons arranges for their daughter to have sex with a son of his enemy.
When he has sex with her, he hears that his girlfriend‟s family has reported that he raped her.
[The accused] cannot look for evidence to prove his case. The court is only going to listen to the girl‟s side of story and what her family has said; anything else is ignored. So instead of seeing the rape acts decreasing, it keeps on increasing. (Rural boys, Rwabika Kabuga)
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Iste: The girl‟s parents easily drop the case if the perpetrator is a married man. He negotiate with the girl‟s dad and beg him as the following: „Please do not kill me, I am going to pay a certain amount for this‟. That is enough to corrupt the girl‟s father… [He will] withdraw the case because of this amount. Tomorrow you find that man walking in the street. He is going to rape another girl tomorrow or after tomorrow because he has got money and influence. There is no justice that can track him. That is why rape is widespread here in our homeland. (Rural boys, Karhanda)
Bosmans (2007) confirms that there is generally lack of competence, power and resources among the judges to make people obey the application of the DRC legislation on sexual violence. A lack of confidence in the judicial system means that rape is not often dealt with.
A second reason discussed by the boys was the influence of pornographic films in movie theatres, essentially a room with a television and a VCR:
Media and sexual violence influence
Baraka: I would like to say that todays‟ children are sexually active. Nowadays children watch pornographic movies, and these influence sexual violence in the community. When they [children] are sent back home because they did not pay school fees, instead of going back home they enter movie theatres [essentially a room with a television and VCR] where they spend their time watching those movies; the problem is that the owners of the movie theatre do not send them home. In so doing, they do not help educate these children. These movies are destroying them because they are likely going to practice on small children of their age.
The sexual violence that they commit is generated from movies that they are watching. This situation also increases rape in the community. (Urban boys, Imani Panzi)
Joseph: Boys are watching pornographic movies, these generate in them bad ideas. For instance after watching such movies, a boy starts wondering: „Ah! This thing also exists. Yes!
I have to practice it‟. When he comes out, he is going to rape a girl that he meets. (Rural boys, Rwabika Kabuga)
The third theme, which generated the most energetic discussion, was a combination of girls‟ provocative dressing in combination with boys‟ lack of self-control:
Paul: Women are encouraging rape. Let us take for example a case of a woman who put on mini-skirt or that clothes that people these days call kanga dadi [women‟s t-shirt/shirt
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exposing part of breast] now when she passes in front of me, I see her dressing in such a way I am going to feel the urge of having sex with her. She is the one who incites me to have sex;
they themselves cause rape that is perpetrated in their lives. A well-educated woman cannot expose her body; she must put on a long skirt that does not reveal her knees. Nowadays‟ girls do not care…they are those who are encouraging rape. Once walking on the street in that way, maybe I can tolerate when she passes by me. But for the next male that she encounters, she must be ready because he is going to follow her. You also realise that other girls dress in such a way because they are looking for money. Therefore, women are the first ones who provoke men to rape them. (Urban boys, Imani Panzi)
Justin: Girls cause rape. Why I am saying this? It is because we notice that these days females‟ attire is not decent. For example, a girl who puts on mini-skirt that reveals her thighs.
Now, a man who looks at her, he is going to feel the sexual lust. If he was looking for a girl to sleep with him, and he is in the place where there are only both of them. He is going to force and rape her because she is the one who provokes it. (Rural boys, Rwabika Kabuga)
Toussin: I would like to say that dressing indecently can be estimated at 60% of causing rape.
Because sometimes you find that a boy did not have thoughts of having sex but from the fact of looking at a woman‟s revealed thighs or breast, he immediately feel the urge of having sex.
Psychologically, his mind is going to shift from things he was thinking to sex. Now if it is a married man who sees that situation, he is going to do all to influence her with money till he has sex with her. (Rural boys, Karhanda)
Josi: Women are really the ones who influence men to have sex with them because of the way in which they manifest in men‟s presence. For example a girl dresses badly and walks in front of men, her attire attracts them. A boy who sees her dressing that way, he is going to be obliged to follow her. Now he is going to have sex with her where they go because she is the cause of everything. (Urban boys, Imani Panzi)
Attributing blame for rape to the woman is common. This is consistent with a South African study, for example, as many as one in five participants across both sexes agreed that rape usually occurs as a result of the actions of a woman and that she can often be blamed for it (Kalichman et al, 2005). Another study conducted in South Africa also concurs that 15.1 % of males claimed that girls who are raped „ask for it‟
(Andersson et al, 2004).
The blaming of women for provocative dressing is balanced to some degree by the assertion that men cannot control their sexual urges. This has been consistently