Women’s League (ANCWL) secretary-general, Meokgo Matuba / Image via Facebook: Emacous Moyo
Women’s League (ANCWL) secretary-general, Meokgo Matuba / Image via Facebook: Emacous Moyo
The ANC Women’s League have taken a very stern stance against convicted rapists on Tuesday, by calling for a national discourse on the prospect of chemical castration.
South Africa is blighted by gender-based violence, and this year’s crime stats saw reported rapes climb above the 40 000 mark. In the last week, the case of the Dros restaurant rape has outraged Mzansi.
Nicholas Ninow has been remanded in custody, suspected of violating a seven-year-old girl in the bathroom of the Pretoria-based eatery. The trial is set to resume on Thursday 1 November, but it has exposed one of South Africa’s most traumatic, age-old wounds.
ANC Women’s League lobby for chemical castration
Through a statement issued by Secretary-General Meokgo Matuba, the ANCWL have demanded that Parliament take drastic steps to curb sexual assaults by adopting laws that allow for “humane” castration.
“The ANCWL is calling for the public to discuss and lobby the parliament to adopt laws that will allow chemical castration or any form of castration of convicted rapists.”
“South Africa must benchmark with Russia, South Korea, Australia, Germany, United States, United Kingdom and other countries where rapists are being administered drugs that reduce their high level of libido and curtail their uncontrollable barbaric sexual desires.”
The long “armpit” of the law
The statement, issued late on Tuesday evening, certainly didn’t hold back on its bellicose language, Matuba said that harsh punishments need to be established “from the armpit of the law” to stop rapists from the “barbaric, cruel acts of using women and children as tools to satisfy their uncontrollable sexual desires.”
According to the SG, they believe that dialogue will be the first step on the road to getting their proposals enshrined in law. The Commission for Gender Equality and the South African Human Rights Commission have also been earmarked as two essential institutions which must host a frank debate on this matter.
Watch ANCWL call for chemical castration here:
