Rape perpetration by young, rural South African men: Prevalence, patterns and risk factors

Abstract

Sexual violence is a well-recognised global health problem, but there has been remarkably little research on men as perpetrators. The objectives of this paper are to describe the prevalence, patterns and factors associated with rape of an intimate partner and a woman who was not a partner with men aged 15–26 years in rural South Africa.

The analysis presented here is of data collected during a baseline survey of participants in a cluster randomised controlled trial of an HIV behavioural intervention. A total of 1370 male volunteers were recruited from 70 rural South African villages. They completed a questionnaire asking about background, sexual practices and perpetration of rape and intimate partner violence.

Among these men 16.3% had raped a non-partner, or participated in a form of gang rape; 8.4% had been sexually violent towards an intimate partner; and 79.1% had done neither. The mean age of first rape was 17 years. There was overlap between rape of a non-partner and partner, in that 44.3% of men who raped an intimate partner had also raped a non-partner, but overall the great majority of men who raped did not disclose both types of rape. The factors associated with rape of an intimate partner and non-partner had similarities and differences. After adjusting for the other variables, both forms of rape were strongly associated with ever having been physically violent to a partner, having had transactional sex with a casual partner and more sexual partners. Non-partner rape was also associated with peer-related variables, including gang membership and peer pressure to have sex, and also drug use. Non-partner rape was more common among wealthier and relatively more socially advantaged men. Both types of rape were associated with having more adverse childhood experiences. There was considerable overlap between rape-associated factors and known HIV risk factors, suggesting a need for further research on the interface of rape and HIV, and integrated prevention programming.

Introduction

South Africa has a particularly high prevalence of rape. With 45,825 rapes of women of all ages reported to the police between 1 April 2003 and 31 March 2004 (SA Police Service October, 2004), the rate of reported rape is 194 per 100,000 female population. This is at least three times higher than, for example, the rate in the United States (US Department of Justice Uniform Crime Reports, 2004). When research is conducted, the rate of rape estimated from disclosure to survey interviewers is uniformly many times higher than rates calculated from reports of cases to the police (Jewkes & Abrahams, 2002; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006; Walby & Allen, 2004). Small focused studies in South Africa have found sexual violence to be experienced by many women. For example, a study of women (n=1395) in antenatal clinics found that 9.7% disclosed rape by an intimate partner in the year prior to the study, and 20.1% had experienced it at some stage in their lifetime (Dunkle et al., 2004a).

There has been very little research conducted in South Africa on men as rapists. Notable local exceptions are a survey of working men (n=1368) in Cape Town (Abrahams, Jewkes, Hoffman, & Laubscher, 2004), 15.3% of whom reported sexually coercing a female partner of the previous decade; and ethnographic research undertaken in the rural Eastern Cape (Wood, 2005; Wood & Jewkes, 2001; Wood, Lambert, & Jewkes, in press) and Limpopo Provinces (Niehaus, 2005). The ethnographic research findings resonate with the conclusions of early feminist authors on rape (e.g., Brownmiller, 1975) in providing descriptions of processes through which rape is used as part of an overall strategy of asserting dominance over and control of women, but also point to rape as a vehicle for self-communication by men about their powerfulness (Jewkes, Penn-Kekana, & Rose-Junius, 2005). Wood & Jewkes (2001) described how control of women was a key aspect of ‘successful’ masculinity among many young men, primarily defined in terms of their ability to have the right partner (one most desirable to others), to have a greater number of partners and to control their girlfriends. Masculinity was constructed and evaluated in on-going acts of competition in relation to male peers, with sexual conquest being regarded as a sign of status, whether achieved by wooing, begging, trickery, or, ultimately, the use of force (Wood & Jewkes, 2001; Wood et al., in press). In the rural Eastern Cape, most men prided themselves on their persuasive abilities and regarded the use of force to get sex as ‘unmanly’. None the less in the context of a dominant ideal that men should be in control of women, some men use rape as a means of engaging with fantasies of power (Niehaus, 2005; Wood & Jewkes, 2001).

Globally, the body of literature on men as rape perpetrators has particular limitations. Studies are almost exclusively North American, usually with small samples, and overwhelmingly participants have been drawn from college students or incarcerated rapists (Abel & Rouleau, 1990; Bachar & Koss, 2001; Drieschner & Lange, 1999). The research has generally not differentiated between findings related to rape of partners and non-partners. Research undertaken in developing countries (e.g., Abrahams et al., 2004; Martin et al., 1999) has tended to focus on rape of intimate partners, rather than non-partners, either because the latter were not measured, or the reported prevalence was very low.

Data collected in the rural Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, in the course of a research project evaluating an HIV prevention intervention (Jewkes et al., 2006) with a large group of young men, have provided an opportunity to explore aspects of rape perpetration quantitatively. We describe here the prevalence, patterns and factors associated with rape of intimate partners and non-partners by young men.