By: Carol Bower

1          INTRODUCTION

For RAPCAN, issues of sexual violence and HIV / AIDS transmission are inextricably linked.  We believe that it is not coincidental that South Africa has both the highest rate of reported rape and the highest rate of HIV infections in the world.  Dealing with one issue without dealing with the other would, in our view, be counterproductive.  Further, we are convinced of the relationship between these issues and our history under apartheid, but also prior to the Nationalist Government legislating the apparent inferiority of the majority of our population.  The related nature of these issues has profound implications for our work as developers of resources aimed at ending child abuse and neglect.

Indeed, it is our direct experience that the relationships between these issues is so fundamental that the interventions that we develop must deal with all aspects, and on several levels.

2          POST APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

In general, South Africa is a violent society.  Our rate of rape homicide, for instance, is the highest in the world.  For every 1,000 reported rapes in South Africa, there are 17 rape homicides - a figure which is 12 times higher than that of the United States and 40 times higher than that for Scandinavian countries[1].  We also have high homicide rates, family violence rates, and serious assault rates.

In addition, South Africa is a deeply patriarchal and conservative society, with relatively rigid roles for men and women sanctioned both by religion and custom.  Despite our Bill of Rights and Constitution, the position of the vast majority of women in South Africa is dictated by these two factors as inferior.

Then, as a country emerging from a long history of racially-based and legislatively sanctioned inequality, we are struggling to redress the wrongs of the past on practical levels and close the significant gaps between the “haves” and the “have nots”.  Of our total population, 55% earn under $2 per day - and 61% of this group is Black African.[2] 

These factors combine to create situations in which increasing numbers of South African children are progressively more vulnerable in a number of ways - specifically with relation to HIV / AIDS.

We believe that HIV / AIDS prevention programmes have, in general, failed to address the pandemic.  It is noteworthy that we have, in South Africa, both one of the highest levels of awareness about HIV . Aids, and the highest rate of new transmissions in Africa[3].

3          THE WORK OF RAPCAN

It is against this background that RAPCAN works to develop strategic responses and produce resources which combat child abuse and neglect.  Our work in relation to abuse and HIV / AIDS is specifically targeted at children between the ages of 6 and 14.

RAPCAN was founded in 1989, but our work relevant to this Symposium has only just commenced.  It has grown out of an opportunity created for us by a series of events which almost resulted in our closure.  Despite the trauma of these events, we were afforded an amazing opportunity to take stock, think strategically, and develop new interventions to deal with pressing issues. 

In particular, we have been able to strategise and be creative around taking on issues of child sexual abuse and HIV / AIDS.  We have done so in consultation and dialogue with especially teachers operating in township schools in and around Cape Town.  We work within school communities, with pupils, teachers and parents.

The work that we do relevant to this Symposium, while in its beginning phase, impacts potentially across all our areas of work in ways which we are just beginning to explore.  This means that many of the issues that the organisers hoped I would deal with in this essay are not appropriate.  I will nevertheless describe how the way in which we currently understand the HIV / AIDS pandemic informs our work.  One of the reasons that I was so eager to attend this event was precisely the development of and sharing of these notions.

It is important to note that, given the apparent failure of current ways of addressing the pandemic, we at RAPCAN are anxious to explore issues such as the inter-relatedness of poverty, lack of access to resources, violent communities and families, and hopelessness are creating the crisis.

3.1        Advocacy

Our involvement in this area falls into our broad strategy for long term prevention through the development of appropriate state policies, guidelines, programmes and legislation (which are often the outcome of campaigns).  We participate regularly in the legislative process in South Africa by making submissions to new legislation while it is in bill form.  Given our perception of the need to move back from the linear “if you behave thus you will likely contract HIV / AIDS” model of addressing the issue, and thus the need to “unpack” the precursors inherent in our society, we will be working in networks to address poverty-alleviation issues at legislative level.

3.2        Resources

The Resource Centre

This library and study area contains the most comprehensive and thorough collection of resources on child abuse and other forms of abuse in South Africa, which have been collected and developed over the years, and underpin the training programmes. Current users include RAPCAN staff, staff and students of tertiary education institutions, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community based organisations (CBO’s) and interested individuals.  Our material on HIV / AIDS is receiving particular attention.

Resource Production and dissemination

In addition to training, direct information provision and dissemination is one of our prevention strategies.  We are constantly devising new and effective ways of channeling information.  In addition to our flagship publication “A Trolley Full of Rights”, we have published a monograph “Child Sexual Abuse in South Africa” and a wide range of posters.  We also stock and supply anatomically correct dolls.  Our recently launched web page (www.rapcan.org.za), is under further development so that it can act as an electronic resource for anyone wanting to find out anything about child abuse and neglect issues, and children’s rights issues in South Africa.  It is already linked to several relevant local and international site, and these will be added to on an ongoing basis.  We are intending to work with the Black Sash on the production of accessible “comic-format” material which deals with the wider range of issues which we believe impact on our situation with regards to HIV / AIDS.

 3.3        Training

Workshops for children

All our interventions with young children explore links between roles, gender socialisation, the right to say “No”, and bodily integrity.

Sexual abuse awareness and personal safety

 RAPCAN conducts children’s workshops, which have been developed to raise awareness of child abuse, HIV / AIDS and related issues amongst children, particularly primary school children.

Children’s Rights

 RAPCAN delivers workshops for children on children’s rights, based on and utilising our publication “A Trolley Full of Rights”.  In these, we underline and explore the cornerstones of both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Organisation of African Unity’s Charter on the Rights of the African Child, namely best interests, non-discrimination and child participation.  There is a specific emphasis on rights with respect to touching, and the rights of people with HIV / AIDS.

Self-esteem and positive self-image

 At RAPCAN we know that children who feel positive about themselves and their own feelings and reactions are more likely to be able to accurately recognise and then respond appropriately to potentially abusive situations.  They are also more likely to disclose these should they occur.     Thus we have developed material which enhances and develops self-esteem and a positive self-concept. 

Workshops for young people

Sexuality workshops

 RAPCAN is part of the SAYStOP Diversion Programme for young sex offenders.  This involvement has given RAPCAN access to the material developed for this programme.  We have adapted this to use within preventative contexts in addition to the current rehabilitative context in which the material is used. RAPCAN offers workshops to adolescents dealing with a range of issues that young people at the beginning of their sexual lives need to deal with.  These include rape, date rape, sexual harassment, HIV/AIDS, negotiating safe sex, socialisation, gender violence and male and female roles.

Workshops for adults

In addition to the above workshops, RAPCAN offers Basic Child abuse awareness and prevention workshops designed to raise awareness amongst adults.  They are delivered to any grouping, but adults who work or interact regularly with children are targeted, such as teachers, nurses, health care workers, day-care workers and others. These workshops are also offered to students or interns in professions which impact directly on children, such as pediatrics, social work, nursing, teachers, first-aid and ambulance drivers, and others.  We are intending to explore ways of working with adults in communities which focus on relationships and the nature of these so that the “in-your-face” approach to dealing with HIV / AIDS, violence against women and child abuse can be broadened to become a dialogue between the organisation and those with whom we work - a dialogue which explores the nature of relationships in South Africa which lead to the levels of violence and HIV / AIDS that we have to contend with.  In doing this, we are hoping to adapt the model developed by the Project Support Group operating from Harare, Zimbabwe.

RAPCAN is also engaged in institutional interventions, where we  work to ensure that relevant material is incorporated into life-skills curricula at schools, and within academic departments to ensure that RAPCAN material forms part of training curricula.

The work that we do is funded by a wide range of donor organisations (especially from overseas) and Trust Funds within South Africa.

Although RAPCAN works with all children and adults, over 60% of our work is with women and girls.  We anticipate that this will also be the case in our work as described above.

Outcomes and impact of our work with specific reference to dealing with issues of HIV / AIDS have not yet been evaluated, as we have only recently commenced working around these issues.  However, our manner of working within communities convinces us that we will have impact, and also result in significant attitude change which contributes to building peaceful communities.  We also are convinced that this manner of working is a valuable “lesson learned”.

Our manner of working is unique within a South African context as far as we are aware. We commence with a “drive” at schools in a targeted area, during which we drop pamphlets and information about our work.  In the pamphlets, and in subsequent telephone calls with members of staff from those schools, we discuss our modus operandi as being one in which we will deliver a series of workshops to a school community, involving the teachers, the parents and the children.  We then access and work with community-based groups, from contacts made via, and experiences with, parents and teachers in the community in which we were working. Areas in which we work are identified via workshops delivered earlier which establish the problems being experienced.  This choice is supported by the existence of other NGOs and community initiatives operating within the community, i.e. an “infrastructure” was pre-existing, which enables us to deliver more effectively.

This strategy was chosen for two reasons. 

1. It has been our experience that it is the teachers to whom children often first disclose abuse, or to whom parents (especially mothers) come when their children are abused.  It has also been our experience that teachers feel helpless in the face of these disclosures, and do not know “what to do next”.
2.  Because we have relatively easy access to teachers, parents and pupils, and because schools are groups which are relatively easy to access physically, we wished to initiate our thrust into communities by working with and through teachers, and thereafter accessing the other community groups within the area.  We anticipated that this would happen either because the teachers and parents themselves belonged to these other community-based groups, or because they would know of service providers and support groups which they had accessed but which they felt could benefit from inputs by RAPCAN.

This manner of working is to be augmented in 2001 with the development of neighbourhood “savings clubs” in the areas in which we work.  RAPCAN itself will not be involved in these, but working through the initiative of Catholic Welfare and Development, who are pioneering this manner of raising awareness in communities.  Basically, this involves the setting up of small neighbourhood groups, with an elected “collector” which enables communities to save relatively small amounts of money into a larger pool, but also provides awareness-and consciousness- raising opportunities around issues of gender violence and sexuality.

4          CONCLUSION

I trust that this essay addresses the kind of information required by the Symposium.  I look forward to opportunities to explore these and other issues in Durban.