Sex abuse – the monsters among us

GEOFF SIFRIN

It begs the question of how many other “Sidney Frankels” are at large among us. Sadly, this case hasn’t provoked the vigorous community-wide response it ought to have done. And regularly, there are rumours about similar kinds of incidents which get summarily quashed.

South Africa is a sick society, known as the world’s rape capital. A 1996 survey of reported rape cases in 120 Interpol-member countries ranked it as the worst, with 119,5 cases per 100 000 population, compared to the United States’ 36,1 and England’s 8,8. Other sources showed 40 per cent of reported rapes were children under the age of 18. Current surveys show similar stats.

Abuse of women and children exists in communities everywhere – Catholic, Muslim, Jewish and others. There is a tendency among close-knit communities to hush up such crimes for their good name. Brave “whistle-blowers” have often been the catalyst for exposure – usually adults who were abused when young.

In 2013 the Jewish paper The Forward in New York, investigated reports of sexual abuse by rabbis in the 1970s at Yeshiva University’s (YU) High School for Boys in Manhattan, a prestigious Orthodox Jewish establishment.

The notion that this had happened at so venerable an institution, was breathtaking; the instinct was to say: “It can’t be true!” The paper was pressurised to keep it quiet.

It raised memories of scandals about sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Church, when Catholic papers were similarly pressurised.

When word got out about The Forward’s investigation, numerous men in their 50s and 60s called to report abuse they had suffered as students, eventually filing a $380 million lawsuit against YU. YU has since instituted policies with multiple avenues for reporting and acting on abuse and equipping teachers and parents to recognise any signs.

Exposing abusers is the best deterrent, but it has to be done properly. Last year, Rhodes University students in Grahamstown, frustrated with feeble university policies that allowed men accused of rape to remain on campus, compiled a list of alleged rapists called the #RUReferenceList. They went to the residences of alleged rapists to demand accountability, and delivered a memorandum to the university demanding changes.

But was this action done in an irresponsible way? The obvious danger is that false accusations may be made, which would cause irreparable damage to someone accused who may be innocent.

Does the law apply equally to all? In 2011, former Israeli President Moshe Katsav was found guilty of rape and sexual assault and sentenced to seven years in jail. But in South Africa, in an unforgettable incident in August last year, four brave young women rose to stand silently with handwritten posters decrying rape in front of President Jacob Zuma as he addressed a gathering of dignitaries in Pretoria.

Zuma had been accused of the rape in 2005 of a woman called Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo known by the non-de-plume “Khwezi”. He was found not guilty, but the case remains shrouded in suspicion.

The Frankel case should inspire this community to institute strong mechanisms for detecting abuse and acting on it. What has happened in previous years and how it was dealt with – such as keeping it quiet – cannot be undone. But any hint or allegation of this nature today must never be ignored. Public exposure of perpetrators is imperative. The Frankel judgement this week makes that more possible.

Read Geoff Sifrin’s regular columns on his blog sifrintakingissue.wordpress.com