Rape as a human security issue, with specific reference to South Africa

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dc.contributor.advisor Hough, Mike (Michael) en
dc.contributor.postgraduate Schreiner, Jennifer Ann en
dc.date.accessioned 2013-09-07T18:13:30Z
dc.date.available 2005-02-18 en
dc.date.available 2013-09-07T18:13:30Z
dc.date.created 2004-03-10 en
dc.date.issued 2006-02-18 en
dc.date.submitted 2005-02-18 en
dc.description Dissertation (M (Security Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2006. en
dc.description.abstract The dissertation aims to explore the impact of rape on human security and hence to drawn conclusions about rape as a national security concern in South Africa. The dissertation puts forward six propositions to be explored and tested: · Forcible rape undermines human security. · The extent of rape in South Africa constitutes a widespread threat to the personal safety of especially women and children. · The constitutional commitment to gender equality, the empowerment of women, the rights of children and the right to security of the person are indicative of the severity with which South African society views rape. · These factors combine to render rape a national security concern in South Africa during the past decade, requiring direct measures to be undertaken. · This situation obliges a coordinated government strategic interpretation of the impact of rape on constitutional rights and stability, and evaluation of government policy in this regard. · An integrated government strategy that entails close cooperation with civil society is required to enable the countering and reduction of rape and the ultimate construction of a rape-safe culture in South Africa. The dissertation begins with a conceptual exploration of the concepts of rape, violence, gender violence, human and national security, and then provides an outline of how these concepts have been applied in the post-1994 South African context. Human security is identified as a core element of South African national security. Against the background of the conceptual definitions of terminology used in the dissertation, and the outline of the application of these concepts in South Africa, the extent and nature of rape is described and analysed. The dissertation avoids over-utilisation of statistics given that rape statistics are based to a large extent only on those cases that are reported to the police, and there is a range of factors that result in the under-reporting of rape. The dissertation then describes and comments on the government’s response to rape in the period 2000-2003, outlining the inter-departmental strategies that have been initiated by Cabinet. Through this analysis, the seriousness with which government and parliamentary representatives have viewed rape has been indicated, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the governmental response to rape. This has enabled an indication of certain key aspects of governmental response that must be addressed if the security risk of rape is to be contained. The dissertation concludes that the propositions are indeed supported by the both exploration of the South African policy on rape, human and national security, as well as the operational practice of the relevant government departments. The dissertation indicates a strong emphasis on the criminal justice prosecution of rape cases, and an imbalance in the social crime prevention dimension of government’s response to rape. It is argued that for a successful strategy to combat rape and to achieve a rape-safe culture in South Africa, an integrated governmental response, with a close social compact with civil society, balancing both improved efficiency and effectiveness of the criminal justice prosecution of rape cases, and social crime prevention that addresses the causes of rape, is required. en
dc.description.availability unrestricted en
dc.description.department Political Sciences en
dc.identifier.citation Schreiner, J 2004, Rape as a human security issue, with specific reference to South Africa, M dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://hdl.handle.net/2263/30190 > en
dc.identifier.upetdurl http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-02182005-145343/ en
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/30190
dc.language.iso en
dc.publisher University of Pretoria en_ZA
dc.rights © 2004, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. en
dc.subject Securitisation en
dc.subject Rape en
dc.subject National security en
dc.subject Intelligence en
dc.subject Gender relations en
dc.subject Human security en
dc.subject Integrated governance en
dc.subject Integrated justice system en
dc.subject Social justice en
dc.subject Social cohesion social crime prevention en
dc.subject UCTD en_US
dc.title Rape as a human security issue, with specific reference to South Africa en
dc.type Dissertation en


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