Sentencing shocks teen rapists

2008-11-25 16:10

Thobile Mlangeni

Nelspruit - Three 18-year-old boys stared at a magistrate in shock when they were jailed for 15 years each for raping a 15-year-old girl.

The boys, from Newskom near Nelspruit in Mpumalanga, had pleaded not guilty.

When they were sentenced in the Nelspruit Regional Court on Monday, they stood frozen in the dock and stared at the magistrate in disbelief.

They had to be told to step down before being led away to the cells.

Magistrate Kgama Shai said South Africans were tired of the alarming rate of sexual abuse against women and young girls.

"The community is sick and tired of rape cases. That is why there is the 16 Days of Activism campaign against women and child abuse," he said during sentencing.

He said the sentence would reinstil moral values in the boys.

The boys were found guilty of raping the girl on August 20 2007 when her grandmother sent her to fetch water from a tap in the family yard.

It was about 20:00 and the boys emerged from the dark and dragged her away.

One of them held a gun to her head. She was taken to a house where all three took turns raping her.

She testified in camera that the boys used condoms.

She fled the next morning and told her grandmother what had happened.

The matter was reported to KaBokweni police and the boys were arrested on the same day. Two of the rapists are orphans.

One lived with his aunt while the other came from a child-headed household.

Magistrate Shai said that he had taken into account that the boys were minors when the incident took place, which is why he did not refer them for life sentences.

- African Eye