There is a teenage girl nicknamed “Jackpot” in Snake Park, in Dobsonville, Soweto. She is the mentally handicapped 17-year-old whose gang-rape ordeal elicited such public outcry and anger all over SA and the world. Her story even made CNN news last week.
The Jackpot moniker derives from the fact that in Snake Park it is generally known that virile, horny males (they don’t deserve to be called “men”) have always had their way with this teenager. Bedding the easy prey is like hitting the jackpot, and it has been like that in this community for a while.
Now, it’s all understandable that South Africans have been appalled by the cowardly act of the sorry excuse for boys and young men who took advantage of a helpless young woman “with the mind of a five-year- old”.
Her mother has, predictably, also been condemned and judged as a slack parent. And so have the men (and women) in blue of Dobsonville police station. With justification.
But it is hypocritical of society and commentators not to ask where the girl’s father was when the mother reportedly failed the teen. And the police allegedly did not show a sense of urgency in attending to her loss/abduction, and her previous rapes.
Even more hypocritical is society’s reaction. I mean, this is a society known for its complicit silence when a crime is committed right under its nose.
Some of the boys who took part in her gang rape evidently meant no harm, but just wanted to have carnal relief. There are reports that she had actually consented to only two boys, but the other five had opportunistically pounced, resulting in the “gang-rape” dimension of the sordid affair.
I can bet my bottom dollar hers is not going to be the last crime of sexual violence .
Not to sound desensitised, but this dastardly incident should have been expected in a country Known for crimes of sexual violence.
Sexual violence is prevalent in SA. And in the world: not so long ago 17 males raped an 11-year old- girl in east Texas. And it happens across the racial divide.
Why do we now act surprised and appalled when men have, for ages, been spiking drinks so that they can take advantage of trusting women?
Can grown-ups say with a straight face they have not heard of is’timela (train), the act of boys who queue up to have their turn with a consenting girl?
Who in the townships has not heard of “jackrolling”, the sex crime, considered a game by perpetrators, where men gang rape their target because she is perceived to be uppity? Who in society has not heard of “spousal rape”?
My missus occasionally remarks that South Africans have a fixation with sex. Think the mass media, and the secular world, and the heroic portrayal of virile, all-conquering men.
That the culprits filmed the act points to their childish, immature, ways. To them, it was just a game. Not that that justifies their despicable act.
And the cellphone video footage of the beastly act went viral, to the titillation of a voyeuristic public. Like that of the prison warder and the policewoman in August last year. And that of the Secunda, Mpumalanga, couple in some hanky-panky in the open who were filmed by dummy coppers in January.
Until we deal with the root causes of a dysfunctional society, we will rant, condemn, judge until we foam at the mouth.
Pious public outrage, but no action, will be society’s impotent reaction each time a Jackpot is violated.
And the “men-are-dogs” trite utterance will continue to be the convenient but unhelpful refrain.
