Legal Eye for the Layperson

The criminal matter of Oscar Pistorius is no secret. The justification behind the hype is that he is a celebrity. Every day, for the past four days, little tid-bits of interpretations and rarely facts were hogging the headlines of this matter. Meanwhile, a six year old girl was raped today by a fellow student at her school in Western Cape. In addition to this, a woman was gang-raped by a group of men, some of whom have been arrested. Compared to the headlines stolen by the Pistorius case, who would want to hear about South Africa’s most tragic flaw? Who is being failed here? The justice system – the media can play a crucial role in societal awareness. Its people – who better to propagate a crime-preventative society than its people? The victims – being outgunned by the same system which was built to protect them is not justified.

Yesterday afternoon, on my way back home from work, I heard about an incident on the radio. It was casually announced that a 17-year old teenager named Anene Booysen was "viciously" raped and mutilated in her home town of Bredasdorp, Western Cape, South Africa. Before she passed away, she managed to name her ex-boyfriend as one of the rapists. It would appear, as there were many suspects, that she was gang-raped. At this point, two men had been arrested and will be brought before court next week. After hearing this  announcement, the country was up in arms and the African National Congress (ANC) Women's League commenced intense political action against rape, demanding that more awareness and "harsher punishments" to be handed down by the courts for such crimes. LEAD SA, a 94.7 initiative, also commenced public action. The two statistics that frightened me the most were announced as well and these were: One in every three women in South Africa will be ra