Rape 'discrimination' slammed

2005-02-07 18:40

Pretoria - A Pretoria High Court judge has slated legislation that "discriminated" between child rape victims, with the rapists of boys facing far less severe sentences than those who raped girls.

Judge Eben Jordaan and acting judge E Tolmay on Monday set aside a three-year jail sentence imposed by a Pretoria magistrate on a 29-year-old Mamelodi petrol attendant, Ernest Tshabalala, for a 2002 incident when he lured a 6-year-old boy into his house and sodomised the child.

He was convicted of indecent assault and sentenced to three years imprisonment, but the director of public prosecutions obtained leave to appeal against the sentence from Pretoria High Court judge Willie Hartzenberg in April last year.

This week, Jordaan and Tolmay not only set aside the lenient sentence, but replaced it with a 15-year jail term that was even more severe than the 10-year minimum sentence presently prescribed by the Minimum Sentences Act for indecent assault.

'Male rape'

Jordaan described the discrimination between male and female child rape victims as "ridiculous" and said it could not be countenanced in a constitutional dispensation like South Africa's.

He described the indecent assault on the boy as "male rape" and said there was no difference between the trauma experienced by male and female child victims of sexual assault.

Jordaan ruled that it was not necessary for the child to have suffered serious physical injuries for the Minimum Sentences Act to apply.

The Minimum Sentences Act presently prescribes life imprisonment for the rape of a girl under the age of 16 years, but only prescribes a 10-year sentence for the indecent assault of young boys.

Prosecutor Sunethe Potgieter hailed the ruling as a milestone decision in the protection of the rights of underage boys where it came to sexual offences.

She said the indecent assault of boys had up until now been viewed in a much less serious light than the rape of young girls.

- SAPA