More than 120 men have been arrested in South Africa over the past week after the gang rape of eight women in the city of Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg. The crime was the trigger for demonstrations in the streets and reignited the debate about high rates of gender violence in the country.
The rape took place last Thursday (28), when armed men invaded a video clip recording location and raped the women. Official data show that, in the first three months of the year, at least 10,800 cases of rape were reported, which represents an increase of almost 14% compared to the same period in 2021.
Although the arrests are being linked to the episode, the men detained are not accused of sexual violence or rape, but of having entered South Africa illegally and being in possession of stolen goods. This is because the police work with the hypothesis that the crime was committed by immigrants who work in mines in the region.
The attack took place at an abandoned mine in Krugersdorp, where 12 women were attacked by a group of men while they were filming with a video crew. The suspects reportedly ordered everyone to lie down and then stole belongings and raped eight of the women before fleeing the scene.
The first operations were carried out on Friday and Saturday and arrested 84 people. Police sources said two suspects were killed in the clash and a third was wounded. New arrests on Tuesday brought the total number of detainees to more than 120.
According to a report by the British newspaper Guardian, the recent police actions looked more like a repression in response to the population’s allegations of criminality than a work specifically linked to gang rape.
Residents attribute much of the violence experienced in the country to the so-called Zama-Zamas, who are workers — usually from countries like Mozambique and Zimbabwe — who enter South Africa illegally to try to make a living in abandoned gold mines.
Zama means “to try” in the Zulu language, which is one of South Africa’s 11 official languages. In Portuguese, the expression would be something like “tente-tente”, an allusion to the effort to find something precious in the mines.
The gold found needs to be sold on the illegal market, which makes little money. For this reason, the zama-zamas tend to live in precarious conditions, close to the areas where they work. For part of the local population, they are blamed for crimes such as assault and sexual violence, while human rights groups claim that immigrants are targets of xenophobia.
In operations carried out by the police on Friday and Saturday, more than 80 zama-zamas were arrested. In the second, they appeared in court in Krugersdorp, where it was discovered that about 20 were minors and should be tried by the children’s justice system.
Police say they are investigating the workers’ participation in the gang rape and hope that, in the coming days, DNA tests will make it possible to link some of the detainees with the crime.
Gang rape sparked revolt
In addition to the street demonstrations, last Thursday’s crime reignited a climate of dissatisfaction with the violence and fueled an ongoing debate in South Africa over chemical castration for rapists. The scenario also puts pressure on the government on police conditions to fight crime in the country, which has one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
On Monday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa urged communities to work with authorities to help find the rapists. “These horrific acts of brutality are an affront to the right of women and girls to live and work in freedom and security,” he said.
In Krugersdorp, there are complaints that the police are not doing enough to protect women and girls from crime.
“Only 8.6% of rape cases in South Africa result in a conviction. The justice system is highly inefficient and there is often a lack of proper investigations, delay or no arrests for perpetrators of gender-based violence,” said Thandiwe McCloy. , from the NGO Powa (people who oppose the abuse of women), to the Guardian newspaper.
According to her, the huge backlog of DNA tests results in cases that take a long time to be finalized and judged.
