South Africa // Current

World cup 2010, play-off and anger

Doesn't start too well the soccer World Cup, which will begin in South Africa by 11... more

hyperion74
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1 day ago
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1 comment

Jennifer Hudson confirms she will portray Winnie Mandela in new film

Jorge Carreon blogs on how Oscar & Grammy winner Jennifer Hudson has been tapped to... more

MediaJor
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5 days ago
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POLICE KILLED 3 YEARS OLD BOY IN SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa’s police watchdog has condemned the “shooting of innocent people”... more

LadybugLady
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9 days ago
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16 comments

POLICE KILLED 3 YEARS OLD BOY IN SOUTH AFRICA

Whats going on?

GetWitIt
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10 days ago
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A Luxury Airstream Trailer Park

Here is one trailer park most of us can't afford to stay in...A new penthouse trailer... more

jwheat22
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12 days ago
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Mass bikini parade in South Africa

great way to bring attention to a good cause

lmbowler
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14 days ago
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Dilana - "Holiday"

South African born, former Rockstar: Supernova contestant, Dilana's lead single... more

sfoom
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17 days ago
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Ancient human metropolis found in Africa

They have always been there. People noticed them before. But no one could remember who... more

Vierotchka
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17 days ago
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109 comments

MIGHTY MOVIE PODCAST on HuffPost: Anthony Fabian on SKIN

You could probably forge a good, absurdist, dark comedy out of a government where... more

DanPersons
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24 days ago
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Animal slaughter for the World Cup?

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African traditional leaders plan to perform ritual... more

tcmfan08
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1 month ago
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1 comment

Book Fakes Nelson Mandela Foreword

Why did Nelson Mandela call Denis Sassou-Nguesso "one of our great African leaders" in... more

Future_America
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1 month ago
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Mr. Sauce

"'You can eat it?' Yes, you can eat it," explains 18-year-old Zimbabwean refugee and... more

sluppy
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1 month ago
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3 comments

Mandela notes show 'grave error'

Unseen writings of Nelson Mandela which are being sold this week show the... more

franksalot
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1 month ago
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"When someone perpetrates an act of rape, it's about reclaiming a sense of power"
Kelly Hatfield, formerly the director of People Opposing Women Abuse.

South Africa, has the highest rate of crime per capita than any other country in the world, and according to the BBC, a young female has more of a chance of being the victim of rape than learning how to read.
When you have a country who’s parliament is so corrupt that even the President has been tried for a rape crime, what hope does that really give it’s citizens who, a quarter of them live on less than 75p a day
It comes as no surprise then that women’s rights in South Africa is appallingly behind the rest of the world, also there are virtually no feminist movements, and women are paid on average 30 % less than men, often for the same type of work.
Of these women, it is statistically black women who are more subject to Rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment by farm owners, managers, and by other farm workers according to United States government research. The dreadful consequences of this type of inequality is apparent in one recent court case that garnered media attention where a mother begged a judge not to send her working husband to court for raping her daughter, for fear of the family starving.
For a woman, more importantly a mother to have to make a decision based on her child’s safety or the rest of her family going hungry is direct attestation that something is urgently wrong.
About 50,000 rapes were reported in 2001, that figure rose to 54 926 in 2006 nevertheless not at rapes are reported and this estimate goes as high as 450,000.
A woman is raped every 26 seconds, according to the South African police that figure is 36 seconds, of course different organisations give different estimates, with the lowest being every 17 seconds.

The problem may lie in the unacceptable public welfares system resulting in insufficient education, the lack of specialist rape units and correct training for the persons that run it, some cite the media and internet with the growing catalogue of sexual images and videos available, whilst others pin the blame on the various tribal cultural beliefs inherited in traditions. Many men in South Africa believe they are entitled to sex and that women enjoy being raped. In a study done in the Gauteng area, 8 in 10 men believed women were responsible for causing sexual violence (Scared at School, 2001)
Even though In 1999, the government established approximately two dozen courts intentionally to handle sexual offenses, this has done little to halt the increasing number of rapes and indecent assaults, as most victims are too scared to come forward about their ordeal, the myth that sex with a virgin can cure AIDS is becoming increasingly worrying too, with the number of child rapes sadly escalating to an unacceptable high, naturally the amount of cases where this method has cured the sufferer of HIV is zero.
Still, after the government won a court case against the pharmaceutical companies to buy AIDS vaccines more cheaply, these possible cures cost £30 to £40 per month, when some people only earn the equivalent of £300 a year this is an impossible solution, forcing the estimated 5.5 million of HIV sufferers to seek alternative options, a desperate person takes desperate measures and unfortunately it is the women and the young that bear the brunt of this.
This isn’t just an epidemic restricted to South Africa either, a study in Zaria, Nigeria by the UNFPA found that 16 percent of hospital patients treated for sexually transmitted infections were younger than 5, this is a trend that should not be growing.
Try to put yourselves in these situations, how would you spend that 75p a day? Or try counting 26 seconds repeatedly, over and over. The problem with the developed world is that we fortunately seldom see these types of stories, to truly grasp and understand the horrors Africans have to deal with, we would have to personally experience them."When someone perpetrates an act of rape, it's about reclaiming a sense of power"... more