What is Rape?
Rape is sexual activity – specifically penetration or sexual violation of the genital organs or anus – perpetrated by one person against the will of another, either by using force or coercion, or by rendering the victim incapable of resisting.
More broadly, it may be defined as forcing a person to submit to any sex act, and is generally considered one of the most serious crimes.
How is rape defined in South Africa?
Traditionally, when a man was accused of having intercourse with a woman against her wishes it was called rape. But the narrow and outdated legal definition of rape as “intentional unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent” is being rewritten.
The new Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Amendment Bill, passed by the National Assembly on 22 May 2007, has broadened the definition of rape to include not only vaginal penetration, but forced or coerced anal or oral sex, irrespective of the gender of either the victim or the perpetrator. Thus the sexual violation of males by sodomy, which until this time was classified as indecent assault, is now included as rape. (It sometimes goes by the term “male rape”.) The Bill also names penetration with an inanimate object or animal genitalia as rape.
Specifically, the law states: “a person who unlawfully and intentionally commits an act which causes penetration to any extent whatsoever by the genital organs of that person into or beyond the anus or genital organs of another person, or any act which causes penetration to any extent whatsoever by the genital organs of another person into or beyond the anus or genital organs of the person committing the act, is guilty of the offence of rape.”
However, this Sexual Offences Bill – in the making since 1998 – which also deals with the dangers of rape, HIV infection, the protection of children and the mentally disabled from sexual exploitation, has yet to be made law, making the default legal definition of rape a grey area.
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