02Mar17c Old press release, Africa (James)

From: http://www.anc.org.za/anc/newsbrief/1997/news0318 

[ZIM = Zimbabwe]

@ FEATURE-ZIM-SEXABUSE

HARARE March 17 1997 Sapa

STUDY FINDS 30 PER CENT OF ZIM CHILDREN SEXUALLY ABUSED

Thirty per cent of Zimbabwe`s children are likely to have been sexually abused, according to a recent study here, which says the rate is three times higher than abuse expected in other parts of the world.

The startlingly high incidence is detailed in a paper soon to be published by Harvard University`s Social Science and Medicine journal, by Zimbabwean educational psychologists Naira Khan and Kwadzanai Nyanungo.

Their findings contrast with a figure of a minimum of 10 per cent of children that has come to be accepted internationally by child care specialists. Traditional African custom that treats both women and children as "male possessions," condones forms of child abuse and regards rape as seduction are factors underlying the high incidence, Khan says.

The researchers also discovered that boys were abused, mostly by women, as often as girls are, contrary to expectations that girls are mostly the victims. In most cases abuse against boys and girls is inflicted by relatives, with teachers coming a close second.

"We can find no reasons for any family to enter the present system and report a case of child sexual abuse," the report adds. "Experience indicates that the initial trauma of the abuse is exasperated by the personnel and procedures demanded by the system at present."

In the last year, however, Khan says police have started training at stations all over the country to make officers deal with reports without intimidating children or women. Legislation for "victim-friendly courts" is to be introduced in parliament this year.

Child welfare experts say the research demolishes the myth that children of African societies are jealously protected by the family system, and that they are far removed from the dangers in highly technological Western society, where children are exposed to paedophilia networks and video pornography.

The study backs up a controversial study by Rebecca Hallahan published in 1994 which says sexual violence in schools across Africa is routine.

The incident at St Kizito school in Kenya in 1991 in which 19 girls were killed and 71 raped by marauding boys, "is not an isolated event, neither in Kenya nor elsewhere on the continent."

Patrick Chinamasa, Zimbabwe`s attorney-general, recently told a conference on the issue: "Take a hard re-look at our culture and you will realise that our culture has not only turned a blind eye to cases of child sexual abuse, but has indeed glorified and given respectability to certain of the child sexual abuses."

Khan gave a confidential questionnaire in 1995 to 549 Harare high school children almost equally divided between boys and girls, asking if they had been sexually abused, and requesting details.

Fifteen per cent of the boys, and 15 per cent of the girls said they had been abused. Khan says a follow-up study in the city of Bualwayo where the the same technique was used, produced an incidence of between 28 per cent and 25 per cent.

Of the abused girls, 41 per cent had been raped, and the rest fondled or touched against their will. Nearly half of the perpetrators were a father, an uncle or a guardian. Another 28 per cent were relatives, and the remaining 26 per cent were teachers. Strangers were scarcely mentioned.

With the boys, 55 per cent of the abusers were women, most of whom forced the boys to have sex with them. The men sodomised them or forced them into oral sex.

For only 22 per cent of the abused children was it a once-off occurrence. For the rest, it went on for between six months and six years. Most of the children were about 12 when it occurred. Some were as young as four. "Some of the questionnaires were horrifying," Khan said. "It wasn`t pleasant."

"Most of the respondents indicated that they felt humiliated, embarrassed, trapped, confused and afraid," says the paper. It confirms "that a substantial amount of abuse goes undetected."

Three-quarters of the boys never reported. Forty-one per cent of the girls reported, but only after a long delay, and then only to female relatives. In some of the cases, the women would not take action, "their explanation being that this was culturally acceptable practice."

There are a whole range of traditional practices that "definitely affect the incidence of abuse," says Khan.

There is Chiramu (Shona language) which encourages an uncle to fondle the breasts and bottom of a young girl. It is meant to socialise the girl in preparation for marriage.

But, says Khan, "The girls were saying they were fed up with it. People were using it deliberately to abuse them."

Far more sinister is the belief that sex with very young girls, prescribed by witchdoctors, can dissolve bad luck. Khan says it is rare, but that there is an increasing number of cases where rape of children is being used as a cure for Aids.

"Community groups are reporting that this solution is often offered by traditional healers," Khan said.