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Vulnerable women: “Girls move around at night” and “The ‘Brown street’ thing
This section has to be read together with Addendum E (Quantitative Data Analysis Results) and relevant aspects of the chapter ‘Psychiatric features’ in relation to places where sexual offending occurs.
“Girls move around at night… It is not safe it is dark… It will be easy for her to be targeted… 6051. P08. “No, they (rapists) don’t think further than that there’s a girl who is walking alone in the dark and so one must take advantage… 6092. P08.
Again the notion that men tended to have no self-control, were opportunistic and libido-driven re-emerged with a different participant. If there was a female in a dark place or who was isolated then she would be worse off. INT06, the co-observer put it more succinctly and concurred with participant P08 after the session. “Contributory factors are not the same… Being out at night alone; enticing dress code; drinking (alcohol)… (All contribute towards being raped).” … 6254 – 6256. INT06 on P08.
“In reality, women who stay alone are still at risk… Women in rural areas where there is darkness and no lights although this has improved… The ‘Brown street’ thing… a famous street in Marabastad where drugs are sold… When a girl walks past she won’t make it.”… 5534 – 5537. C06
Marabastad is an old district on the northwest end of the city of Pretoria (Tshwane). It is named after Chief Maraba of the Ndebele who is claimed to also have been the city’s first court translator. It became one of the melting pots of culture as segregation during apartheid forced different groups of migrant communities to settle in the area (Clarke, Accone, Masilela and Mthwethwa 2008). Later, like in other similar areas in the country, forced removals led to the disenfranchisement of those communities like communities in District Six, Sophiatown and similar. There are still both formal and informal merchants that occupy most of the remaining shopping zones. In recent reports, the area has grown a reputation for being a melting pot of all things bad, including drug abuse, and has come to be known as a place where ‘even robbers get robbed’ (Abreu 2013). It may represent places women ought to avoid.
About beliefs surrounding sexual offending, both lay and professional individuals seemed to see eye-to-eye in some areas representative of the myths about sexual offending referred to above. In those instances, emerging myths included the belief that women were to blame for their sexual violation if they were found at the wrong place, at the wrong time of day, whilst wearing the wrong clothes. At the end of some interviews, during the process of the evaluation and analysis of some of the emerging concepts and themes (and myths) including the dress code phenomenon, the researcher would be compelled to reflect. For instance, the dress code issue came into play in the research process itself in terms of researcher reactivity during preparation for some interviews. How the researcher would dress and how that would be perceived would come into focus introspectively (see process discussion below). During the interviews, the dress code and environmental safety matters would come up again but in the context of the victims of sexual offences. The researcher had to be cautious not to close off any worthwhile conversations because of the sensitivity of the discussions though.
In a study by Muchoki in Kenya, like in the current one, vocabulary around explanations of sexual offending were those of victim-blaming (2011). The notion that potential victims are to blame for their sexual violation and have a responsibility to protect themselves versus a stronger sentiment that would-be perpetrators must desist from attacking women is an ongoing debate. The ‘Don’t Rape’, ‘Real men don’t rape’ (Holly 2009) movements and anti-Campus Sexual offending movements that later were linked with universities in South Africa represent the latter part of that debate (De Klerk, Klazinga and McNeill 2007). Furthermore, in South Africa, the ‘appropriate’ dress code concept has been topical all the while but was made more popular politically when the ruling governing party’s women’s league went on a march to protest the maltreatment of women in public transport spaces e.g. taxi ranks because of their outfits (Makoni 2011). Aside from that, the issue of the women’s dress code and the myth that women deliberately entice men by wearing ‘miniskirts’ and therefore men have a right to respond by sexually assaulting them as punishment, abounds (Makoni 2011). The relationship between the poor impulse control of men who are so-called ‘sex hungry’, and their being enticed by women’s dress code and women found ‘looking for trouble’ in isolated places, falls into the ambit of myths that perpetuate sexual offending as discussed above (Burt 1980; Cassim 2009; McGee 2011). It has also been demonstrated that the language around the dress code falls under the theme of social control of women in society, including the control of their dress sense (Makoni 2011). Historically, the exercise of controlling women through their dress and other societal value systems has been pegged on the tension between patriarchy (tradition) and modernisation (Makoni 2011). The current study findings seem to be aligned to similar notions – that sexual violence is a form of social control to entrench various power relations frameworks including gender and vulnerability.
SEXUAL OFFENDING: PREVENTATIVE FACTORS
Closely linked to the findings and discussions on sexual offending, how it was defined and what the contributory factors were, was the separate emergent concept of prevention according to the participants. Prevention in this context was specifically raised as part of the motivation to do the study (see Introduction and Theoretical frameworks sections). During the recruitment and selection of participants when the potential candidates were approached, prevention was a relatively easy concept to introduce as one of the pillars and the reasons the research study was being conducted. And so the following discussion is in the context of questions and responses that were initially provoked by the researcher but later started emerging spontaneously. Once again, there was no palpable difference in terms of responses between those who were accused of sexual offences versus those who were not. Any other delineating lines of separation that may have been observed will be pointed out forthwith. The summary follows a pattern similar to the contributory factors section, partially. The separation of the contributory from the preventative factors almost becomes semantic in places as they are closely intertwined. The section is divided into victim, perpetrator and system preventative measures. The described measures were from the participants’ perspectives.
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 RESEARCH PROBLEM AND RESEARCH AIMS
1.2 MOTIVATION TO DO THE STUDY AND ANTICIPATED CONTRIBUTIONS
1.3 BACKGROUND LITERATURE
2 METHODOLOGY
2.1 THE STUDY SETTING
2.2 THE STUDY PHILOSOPHY
2.3 DESIGN AND RATIONALE FOR USING MIXED RESEARCH METHODS
2.4 THE STUDY CONTEXT
2.5 SAMPLE
2.6 PROCEDURES AND DATA COLLECTION
2.7 DATA RECORDING
2.8 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE
3 PSYCHIATRIC FEATURES AND LIFE DURING FORENSIC OBSERVATION
3.1 INTRODUCTION: PSYCHIATRIC FEATURES
3.2 FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIC FEATURES: DESCRIPTIVE QUANTITATIVE RESULTS
3.3 DISCUSSION ON FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIC FEATURES, THE REPORT AND OTHER RELATED MATTERS:
3.4 LIVING WITH MENTAL ILLNESS: SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS
3.5 LIVING WITH MENTAL ILLNESS: BELIEF SYSTEMS AND HEALING
3.6 LIVING WITH MENTAL ILLNESS: STIGMA
3.7 A QUALITATIVE CRITIQUE OF THE FORENSIC OBSERVATION PROCESS: THE OBSERVED, THE CO-OBSERVER AND THE OBSERVER
3.8 THE RESEARCH PROCESS DURING PSYCHIATRIC FEATURES AND FORENSIC OBSERVATION DISCUSSIONS
3.9 SUMMARY NOTES: EMERGING THEORY PSYCHIATRIC FEATURES AND FORENSIC OBSERVATION
3.10 IMPLICATIONS:
4 SEXUAL OFFENDING
4.1 PROLOGUE: PSYCHOSOCIAL FEATURES
4.2 SEXUAL OFFENDING: DEFINED
4.3 SEXUAL OFFENDING: CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS
4.4 SEXUAL OFFENDING: PREVENTATIVE FACTORS
4.5 THE PROCESS DURING SEXUAL OFFENDING DISCUSSIONS
4.6 SUMMARY NOTES: EMERGING THEORY ON SEXUAL OFFENDING
4.7 IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS RELEVANT TO THIS CHAPTER:
4.8 EPILOGUE:
5 THE ‘VILLAGE’- LIFE BEFORE ARREST AND WAYS OF RELATING
5.1 PROLOGUE: THE ‘VILLAGE’ CONCEPT
5.2 THE ‘VILLAGE’: WAYS OF RELATING: RAISING BOYS, RAISING MEN AND OTHER TALES OF TOIL
5.3 THE ‘VILLAGE’: WAYS OF RELATING: SEXUALITY AND RELATIONSHIPS
5.4 THE ‘VILLAGE’: WAYS OF RELATING: CONDITIONS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO CONFLICT, AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE IN RELATIONSHIPS
5.5 THE ‘VILLAGE’: LIFE IN THE TIMES OF HIV / AIDS – RELATIONSHIPS, SEXUALITY AND VIOLENCE
5.6 THE PROCESS OF RESEARCHING SEXUALITY IN THE ‘VILLAGE’: THE RESEARCHER IN THE SPOTLIGHT
5.7 SUMMARY: EMERGING ASSERTIONS, THEORY AND IMPLICATIONS IN ‘WAYS OF RELATING’ SECTION
5.8 SUMMARY OF EMERGING THEORY IN THE CHAPTER ‘LIFE BEFORE ARREST AND WAYS OF RELATING’:
6 THE ‘VILLAGE’ – LIFE IN THE HANDS OF JUSTICE
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 LIFE DURING ARREST
6.3 LIFE IN COURT
6.4 LIFE IN PRISON
6.5 RECOMMENDATIONS TO CORRECTIONAL SERVICE DEPARTMENT FROM REMAND DETAINEES:
6.6 THE PROCESS OF RESEARCHING ‘LIFE IN THE HANDS OF JUSTICE’:
6.7 SUMMARY DISCUSSION OF THE CHAPTER ON ‘LIFE IN THE HANDS OF JUSTICE’
6.8 IMPLICATIONS:
7 DISCUSSION: THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS
7.1 INTRODUCTION
7.2 SUMMARY OF ‘FINDINGS’ CHAPTERS
7.3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS REVIEW
7.4 SUMMARY OF THE THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS SECTION:
8 REFLECTIONS ON THE RESEARCH PROCESSES
8.1 RESEARCH PROCESS FINDINGS
8.2 RESEARCH PROCESS VALIDITY TESTING
8.3 EVALUATING STRENGTHS
8.4 LIMITATIONS
8.5 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS DISCUSSION
8.6 FINAL IMPLICATIONS AND STUDY CONTRIBUTIONS
8.7 FINAL SUMMARY
8.8 LIST OF REFERENCES
