Rape in South Africa: an invisible part of apartheid’s legacy
Overview
In apartheid South Africa, rape became not only acceptable but also legitimised. The law recognises rape only in limited instances and fails to take effective preventative or punitive action. So expected is the violence that schoolgirls sometimes assist rapists. Armstrong links rape to poverty, race and class, with poor black women being targeted most often. Rape is a weapon men use to maintain dominant male power relations, for example by denying girls an education. The solution must be to change social and cultural attitudes at the household and local levels, because it is the destruction of these units by apartheid that has allowed rape to become prolific.
This article is hosted by our co-publisher Taylor & Francis. For the full table of contents for this and previous issues of this journal, please visit the Gender and Development website.
Additional details
Author(s)
Editor(s)
DOI
10.1080/09682869308520009How to cite this resource
Citation styles vary so we recommend you check what is appropriate for your context. You may choose to cite Oxfam resources as follows:
Author(s)/Editor(s). (Year of publication). Title and sub-title. Place of publication: name of publisher. DOI (where available). URL
Our FAQs page has some examples of this approach.
Oxfam in Gender Emergencies Standards 2022-25
Oxfam Gender in Emergencies Strategy 2022-25
Food Wars: Conflict, Hunger, and Globalization, 2023
