Rape - Your instinct can save your life

Some of you may know that I have written a Rape Response Protocol, specially for South Africa and it is getting a bit of media attention at the moment. The Rape Response Protocol Initiative is aimed at informing the public and survivors of rape, what the appropriate first steps are and provide an overview of the process from incident to guilty verdict.  Ultimately to assist and encourage survivors of rape, to understand that the process involves several phases and that it is in the interest of justice and in their own interest, that they remain in that process till the end.

It comes in the form of an info-poster and matching booklet that is available as a download from our website http://www.viva-sa.co.za/index.php/programmes/rape-response-protocol-initiative and as funding becomes available, in print as well.

I am going to begin to write my thoughts on rape and considered create a separate blog around the subject, but for now I will just keep it right here in my personal blog - as it is a very personal issue for me - and see how it goes from here.  

Much is being said about rape in our country and across the world lately, but we all know it is not a new phenomenon.  What is very disturbing however, is that particularly brutal rapes, accompanied by true barbaric actions, such as disembowelment, broken bones, breast mutilation and internal injuries with objects, such as one finds in war-crime scenarios, perpetrated by inhumane and pitiless savages, are increasingly seen among us, during our urban peace-time existence.  

The perpetrators of the gang-rape and murder of the young student on a moving bus in India, our 'very own' Modimole Monster and the young men who raped, disemboweled and broke the legs of Anene in Bredasdorp, do not seem to be savage, war criminals or rebels in the jungles of the DRC. These are people who live among us, have studied, most probably have some religious back-ground - if not on a personal level, then at least from parent-home.  

What I am trying to say is:  These are people whom one would expect to have some level of restraint.  Society, Faith and Godliness, Education, Culture, the Law - these are common restraints that are in place in our world.  Norms and values are in place.  So what makes a man cut off his ex-wife's nipples and force strangers to rape her under duress?  What on earth makes a boy cut open a girl's stomach after raping her?  How can friends watch and encourage each other to jam a metal pipe into a girl after raping her and throw her off a moving bus?   

On Valentine’s Day, 4 women were killed in South Africa by their husbands and boyfriends.  Two were shot to death, one was stabbed to death and one was hacked to death with an ax.  Three of the men killed themselves after the attack; the fourth is awaiting the opportunity to request bail, denying the charges of pre-meditated murder.   My husband remarked very aptly:  “Men are a danger to women.  One should teach women to see the danger signs and get themselves to safety.”  A woman can no longer assume that if she stands her ground; she would get away with her life.

I read an interesting article a year or two ago from a therapist who is teaching her patients to trust their own instincts.  She wrote of a woman, who was ‘too nice to be rude’ to a man who ‘merely’ offered to help her carry her groceries upstairs to her apartment, although she felt uneasy.  After he raped her in her own bed, he offered to fetch her a glass of water in her kitchen and ‘something’ made her get up, follow behind him quietly and as he turned into the kitchen, she ran out the front door and got help.  By her description, the rapist was apprehended and found to have raped and murdered two other women. The therapist helped her afterward to analyse the whole situation and identify what she felt, why she acted the way she did and how she saved her own life.  

She realized later, that as she passed the kitchen, she heard the rapist open her cutlery drawer. Who looks for a glass in a drawer?  She realized he was looking for a knife and would have returned to stab her, had she not gotten up and walked right behind him, to safety. At the onset, when taking her shopping bags from her, after she told him she does NOT need help, he simply overrode her wishes.  By allowing him to take her shopping, she signaled clearly that her 'niceness' and unwillingness to be rude to him, made her a suitable victim. He said:  "I just want to help, I'm not going to do anything to you."  Why would he say that?  No-one insinuated it!  

She realized also that he made an 'us' and a 'we' out of the two of them, where no 'us', or 'we' existed.  When they got to her door and she had to take her keys out, he said:  "What are we going to do now?"  All of these were clear signals, she felt extremely uneasy, but still she reached into her bag and took out her key and thus gave him access to her safety and the opportunity to rape her.  She could have been rude and told him off in the street already.  She could have knocked on her neighbor's apartment instead of her own, she even could have pushed him down the stairs... but then later, after he had proven that he lied - he DID do something to her - something inside her made her realize that she cannot trust him to merely fetch a glass of water and leave her in peace.  This, however is just one scenario.  One 'kind' of rapists - the stranger, the prowler.  The fact is that more people are raped by people they know, than by strangers.  Come to terms with it!! 

I want to ask you to disseminate this blog as widely as possible and also to send me information and stories about that ‘something’ that warned you – in any case of crime/violence/rape/robbery etc. – something was not OK.  Whether or not you ‘obeyed’ that inner voice, please tell me if you knew something was wrong before the time.  Do you know what it was that seemed odd? 

(For instance, when we had a motorcycle shop in 2008, a group of young guys came into the shop one afternoon and I simply just didn’t like them for any apparent reason.  They were a little ‘pushy’ and out of place, over friendly and one could tell they had no business buying a bike, or expensive biking gear.  But I was too nice!  I didn’t want to come across unfriendly or ‘racist as they were black.  That night we had a robbery and I just know it was them, that they were scouting out the shop that afternoon.) 

I believe that it is essential to learn to trust your instincts.  Children have great instincts and we teach them to over-ride their first responses to people, by scolding them for being rude.  If a child doesn't like someone, or doesn't want to go to someone – don’t force them.  We teach children to obey older people and even strangers, just because they are adults/family/friends/it-is-the-nice-thing-to-do!  A child says “no” before he says “yes”.  Children know exactly what they want and don’t want – we are the ones who teach them to override that instinct for the sake of courtesy.  The uncle, who molested me as a five year old child, was brazen about his ‘adoration’ of little girls.  He always hugged the nieces hard in front of everyone and always had cotton candy that he gave us, planting kisses on our mouths.  If someone would act like toward my daughter today, I would slap him in front of everyone.  But back then, no-one wanted to make a scene.  No-one wanted to say:  “Stop that!  She doesn't like it!” 

The fact is that there is no single perpetrator-profile of rapists.  There is a whole palette of different kinds of rapists.  Likewise the victim profile is varied.  When I see letters in newspapers of men who believe that a mini-skirt is the reason for rape, I can just shake my head in disbelief.  It is so narrow-minded and while there are cultures who certainly believe that a woman who bears her legs all the way to her bottom, is inviting men to look at her in a dishonorable way, the man who will rape a woman simply because her skirt is turning him on, is probably one of the least common rapists.  Grandmothers are raped, boys are raped, babies are raped, rape accompanies acts of violence, some rape and kill, some rape and apologize.  How can you protect yourself and your life, if you don’t learn to identify your instinct, trust it and act on it? 

Please let me your stories.  You can also mail me privately (info@viva-sa.co.za) - you dont have to post your story for all to see if you dont want to.