As a week-long campaign to create awareness around the Sexual Offences bill has drawn to an end, South African NGOs involved in gender violence issues are calling for the proposed legislation to provide free anti-AIDS drugs for rape survivors, reports IRIN.
The bill initially included a treatment clause covering post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for women who had been sexually assaulted at state cost, but it was removed, then reinstated in modified form, and has now been sent back to the ministry of health for redrafting.
The NGOs are uncertain about the future of the clause. – It is difficult to establish the department of healths progress in reworking the clause – we are hoping that all will be revealed within the foreseeable future, Helene Combrinck, senior researcher at the Community Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape, said at a briefing last week.
South Africa has one of the highest incidences of sexual abuse in the world. According to police statistics, 52.107 rapes and attempted rapes were reported in 2002, while a 1999 health department study found that 7 percent of women aged between 15 and 49 had been raped or coerced into having sex against their will.
Although cabinet announced in 2002 that rape survivors were to receive antiretroviral drugs to reduce the risk of HIV transmission, Combrinck noted that research conducted by Human Rights Watch had shown that the provision of PEP was “not happening as it should be”.
The 25 NGOs involved in the campaign said in a statement, “PEP is simply not being consistently offered to survivors of sexual offences, because of the general reluctance that has been shown by the government to rolling out antiretroviral drugs.”
Kilde: FN-bureauet IRINnews
