South Africa: The Rape State.

Rape is commonplace in South Africa. It’s been reported that over 40% of women in South Africa are and will have reported to have been raped at least once in their lifetime. The crisis is so persistent that rape cases no longer make the news cycle alone, it takes celebrities and powerful people being raped for this social ill to get airtime. Yet, so many women fall victim to this heinous act. 

In this episode we seek to understand rape at 3 levels: 

• At a conceptual level, where we discuss issues of power and consent
• At a personal level, where we discuss issues of dignity, trauma and recovery 
• And at a societal level, where we discuss its broader societal harms, while perhaps tracking its history in order to give us a greater understanding of this crisis. 

We are joined today by activist Bulelwa Adonis, helps us unpack this issue by taking us through some of her research on rape in South Africa.