The rapes by the 2-PAC Jack Rollers in Soweto (Sunday Times, 24 May 1998, "Gang rape victim...") are not isolated incidents but part of a culture of sexual violence, says Professor Neil Andersson of CIETafrica. CIET, in partnership with Johannesburg's Southern Metropolitan Local Council (SMLC), is currently conducting an extensive community-based survey aimed at identifying ways to prevent such violence.

Although the community-based planning is still in progress, it is clear to the researchers that the recreational rape known as "Jack Rolling" has evolved from sealing off streets or buildings, and raping every woman caught in the net. It now often includes raiding parties and school yards, with women and young girls taken away at gun-point.

Between January and April of 1998, the CIET/SMLC team has researched the extent of sexual violence in the southern metropolitan region -- from the financial district in the northern reaches of the local council, through to the rural informal settlements of Orange Farm in the south; from Zola in the west of Soweto through to City Deep in the east. Field workers were drawn from many local partner NGOs including the UNISA-CPA, WAWA, Lungelo, Social Dimensions, Vision of Hope, the Gauteng network on violence against women, POWA and SANCO.

These local researchers interviewed some 4 000 women, 2 100 men, 1 200 high school pupils, 90 members of the police and 90 other service workers such as social workers, prosecutors, magistrates and district surgeons. The product is the largest and most detailed body of evidence on sexual violence available in the country, and it takes a hard look behind the headlines.

"AIDS is indeed one of the reasons men gave us for their sexual violence," says Sharmila Mhatre, the CIET research associate who trained the local NGO counterparts, "but there are other more common and deeper reasons".

Dr. Shan Naidoo, Strategic Executive for Health and Social Services of the SMLC, explained the philosophy behind the initiative:"If the economic reconstruction under way in South Africa is to have any meaning for the people living in Johannesburg's South, there is an urgent need for preventive peace-building and psychological reconstruction".

The first characteristic of the innovative SMLC/CIET initiative is that it focuses on men: if anything is to be done about sexual violence, the managers of the initiative believe, men must change.

The second distinguishing aspect of the initiative is that it takes a strongly preventive approach. As explained by Prof Andersson, "The essence of primary prevention is that many men who live in these same communities are NOT sexually violent; they are resilient to the pressures that make some men in their communities rapists. We have to find out what gives them this strength, this resilience, and we will hold that up as a positive guide for all men". The approach was named by its field workers: Sinamandla okumvimbela, Re ya mamella, The power of resilience.

The process is funded by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and allows for three research and action cycles at six month intervals; subsequent cycles will monitor the impact of the initiative . The project was also supported by the Gauteng Department of Health Medico-Legal Services, the South African Police Services, the Office of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice.

About Ciet

CIETafrica is the newest member of the international CIET group of non-government organisations, charities, trusts and institutes. The acronym CIET stands for Community Information Empowerment and Transparency.

CIET was founded in 1985 as a university-based tropical medicine research and teaching institute in Guerrero state, Mexico, in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Repeated international requests for support led to the creation of CIETinternational, a public funded charity with headquarters in New York. CIETafrica was established in South Africa in 1997. In addition to its Gauteng work on sexual violence, in the Wild Coast CIET has developed a community-based planning support platform for agricultural and eco-tourism SMMEs. It has also been contracted by the SA Universal Service Agency to develop a national telecentre evaluation system.

Since 1985, the CIET group has taken scientific research to community level in 43 countries, supported by UNICEF, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the World Food Programme, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the Open Society Institute, the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the national governments of various countries.

CIET work in other countries has included:

Access to justice (Mali)
Child rights (Costa Rica, Pakistan, Nepal)
Corruption (Tanzania, Uganda, Nicaragua, Bolivia)
Empowerment of women (Nicaragua)
Gender gap in education (Pakistan, Nicaragua, Nepal)
Land mines (Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia and Mozambique)
Nutrition (Bosnia, Mexico, Nepal)
Substance abuse (Canada)
Community based approaches to asthma Health sector reform
(Palestine, Bangladesh, Uganda)
Food security (Bosnia, Afganistan)

Issued by Marina Penderis
Information officer: CIETafrica
Tel: 083-457-6872
Email: CIETinfo@compuserve.com