Chemical castration of rapists is no solution – experts

Gender relations experts have shared their frustration with the ANC Women’s League again bringing up chemical castration as a solution to dealing with rapists, with one describing the suggestion as “lazy thinking”.

Recent incidents of gender-based violence (GBV) include the brutal rape and murder of University of Cape Town student Uyinene Mrwetyana and the murder of female boxing champion Leighandre Jegels.

On Tuesday, league secretary-general Meokgo Matuba said in a statement: “We are opening up a debate on chemical castration as an option for dealing with gender-based violence. We need to conduct a comparative analysis on countries who have implemented castration against numbers of cases in such countries to ascertain if such laws have affected decrease in numbers of cases…”

Matuba suggested the same thing in October last year, when the case of a man accused of raping a seven-year-old girl was being heard. She said the current laws were not an adequate deterrent.

However, experts did not think it would be effective.

Women’s Legal Centre advocate Bronwyn Pithey said chemical castration and the reintroduction of the death penalty was a reactive and not proactive response to what has been a massive problem in SA for generations.

“We incorrectly link sex with rape. The core violence is not around sex but violence, power and control.

“Chemical castration will only make them impotent. The perpetrators of this violence will find other ways to inflict harm.

“This is clearly a reactive response and it sounds good but it has very little deterrent value.”

She said the minimum sexual sentence, life imprisonment, is adequate. However, not enough accused rapists were prosecuted.

The people who committed these crimes did not think of the consequences.

“What the country needs is a well-resourced and strong criminal justice system because now it is not effective in protecting the system,” said Pithey.

Gender expert Amanda Gouws echoed Pithey’s sentiments and said the suggestion of chemical castration was “lazy thinking” and “an easy way around the problem”.

“There was a women’s parliament last week with a committee discussing GBV in each province.

“Why can’t the government look at that and formulate solutions? Why are there inputs in parliament and the government is not acting on them?”

– jenniffero@citizen.co.za

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