Genocide Watch Article - 14 March 2008

This article can be found on Genocide Watch, Resources, By Region, Africa, Southern Africa, South Africa.

March 14, 2008

World Briefing | Africa

In South Africa, Crime Is Child’s Play

By BARRY BEARAK

JOHANNESBURG — Violence has become so pervasive in South African schools that children as young as 7 play games such as “rape me, rape me,” where students simulate sexual attacks,” according to a chilling report issued Wednesday by the nation’s human rights commission.

The research, which took 18 months to complete, was mostly done in Western  Cape province. Statistics were in short supply because most assaults in schools go unreported, the commission said. But the report asserted that physical attacks were alarmingly commonplace, including a phenomenon known as “corrective rape” where boys assault lesbian students to try to turn them into heterosexuals