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Subscribe to RSSPublished at 10 p.m. ET -- BREDASDORP, South Africa - Hundreds of South Africans chanting "enough is enough" gathered on Friday at a building site where a 17-year-old girl was mutilated and left to die after being gang-raped.
Their tribute was testimony to how the killing of Anene Booysen has stirred outrage in a country where many people have become oblivious to rampant sex crimes and violence.
People marched in a procession to the site in the sleepy town of Bredasdorp, 80 miles east of Cape Town, where they placed flowers and candles by a simple wooden cross.
Booysen was found by security guards lying only a short distance from her house after partying at a nearby bar last Friday evening. She later died in hospital.
Her foster mother, Corlia Olivier, recounted the moment when she saw her daughter dumped amid the gravel and grass, her stomach slit open down to her genitals.
"I heard her saying ‘Mommy help me, Mommy help me' and I rushed over...and just saw her guts hanging out," Olivier told reporters, tears welling up in her eyes.
The incident and the public response has echoes of the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus last year, which caused a national and international outcry.
President Jacob Zuma expressed shock and outrage, calling for the harshest possible sentences for the killers and a concerted campaign "to end this scourge in our society."
In Geneva, U.N. Human Rights chief Navi Pillay said South Africa must tackle a "pandemic of sexual violence" and she was concerned about low conviction rates for rapists.
"There is a need for very strong signals to be sent to all rapists that sexual violence is absolutely unacceptable and that they will have to face the consequences of their terrible acts. The entrenched culture of sexual violence which prevails in South Africa must end," said Pillay, herself a South African.
South Africa has the highest number of reported rapes per head of population of any Interpol member country, with more than 64,500 reported in 2011/2012.
Even when suspects are caught, only 12 percent of cases end in conviction. But sexual crimes seldom cause little public concern beyond some soul-searching editorials and anguished radio phone-ins.
The Womens' League of the ruling African National Congress is trying to mobilize the public into similar action to the protests against anti-female violence that took place in India after the New Delhi attack.
On Friday, Cape Town radio station KFM broadcast a "bleep" every four minutes as a reminder to listeners that another South African woman will, on average, have just been raped.
Death penalty?
At the Bredasdrop site, religious leaders and politicians linked arms with Booysen's relatives as they sang hymns and laid a wreath by the cross, adorned with a pink ribbon.
"I still hear her footsteps," Olivier said as a stream of well-wishers arrived to offer condolences.
Maree Louw, commander of the local police station, said the murder was one of the worst cases she had seen in a long career.
"The brutality and the slaughter of this young teenager is beyond belief," Louw told Reuters.
Like many towns in South Africa's Western Cape, Bredasdorp, with a population of 35,000 people, has problems with drug and alcohol abuse but, Louw said, most people would go to bed at night with their back doors open and windows unlocked.
Booysen managed to reveal the name of one of the attackers, a family friend, before dying. Three men in their early 20s have been arrested and are expected to appear in court on Tuesday on charges of rape and murder.
They face the prospect of life in prison if convicted.
Under a constitution drawn up after the end of apartheid in 1994, Nelson Mandela's "Rainbow Nation" abolished the death penalty. Some in Bredasdorp wish that were not the case.
"This crime was very sadistic and deserves the death penalty," said mother-of-three Sophia Europa. "What they did was worse than anything done to an animal."
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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So sad, my heart goes out to the family.
Happens to men all the time in our prisons and nobody seems to care even if they are imprisoned for non violent crimes. What happened to this young lady is more than rape, its Satan personified.
I'm definitely leaning towards the death penalty on this case. I'm disgusted and amazed that this can happen in current times. I can't believe the numbers either. Disgusting and sad is about it. I hope we all don't think we have the whole story though. It would be good to get more of it than what we have.
May her soul rest in perfect peace. To you listeners out there I am an African woman but I can tell you that sex crimes are seen as ok in our stupid, and primitive society because who are you to complain. This is how it goes
1. When a woman is raped, society blames her and because it is a shame on her family, her family keep it to themselves and just say it only sex and you will be fine.
2.Our law makers and leaders do not care about other peoples children especially girls, so if you are a parent you have to protect you daughter.
3. Some parents even send their daughters out to sell may be dough nut miles away from home so that the money can be used to care for the everyone especially the boys, and most of these girls end up been raped and their mothers just don't care.
4. Men are seen as more important than girls so if you are a girl in society tough life for you. A high school student was gang raped (in Ghana 2012) by her classmate boys and the boys were told not to do that again. Nothing was ever done to these 5 boys. How would you feel if that was your daughter?
5. Rape is always a girls fault, so if you are raped, don't blame anyone blame yourself. That is the way women are shamed in society.
You analyse all these things and you wonder what has the world come to. Why wont the girl child be protected by her parents, leaders, and even her brothers? because she worth's nothing according to her society. Is that not sickening? Please protect you selves especially women out there when you visit any of these African countries. I was born there and I am telling you, I am blessed I left that animal kingdom to a safe environment where I know there are laws. In sub- Sahara Africa cruelty is the order of the day towards women.
All of African, Middle East and Indian society are rapists. The whole of the people are complete animals to let this happen over and over again. What kind of people have you become when your daughters and sisiters are raped and society looks the other way. To hell with all these backwards countries. they will have no respect from me any more. The next time I meet an African I will ask him how mnay women he has raped.
This needs to stop. No one deserves to be raped, let alone gang raped and murdered.
Find the people responsible. KILL THEM
If you don't, if we allow people to get away with this, it will continue.
Agree 100% Jess
This has been the way women have been treated throughout history. In America the Blackmen got the vote before White women did. I am from the West and I see this as horrific. But somebody from the Middle East, South Africa or India would see it as the woman"s fault. This reasoning is beyond me. I don't get it. Why would anybody want to cause such harm to someone and their family? The human traficking for sex trade is right up there in modern tradjedies also. History will judge us and hopefully these incidents will cause change. But I doubt it when I see the hate, ignorance and prejudice in this world. My prayers to the family for some kind of peace.
Arrest, try and convict these sociopathic animals and torture them, until they beg for death. Then lock them up in solitary confinement, (absolutely no privileges) for the remainder of their un-natural existence. They deserve the best from So. Africa.
And if any "Bleeding Hearts" say that's cruel and unusual punishment for the RAPIST/MURDERERS, then bundle up the Bleeding Hearts, and put them in solitary confinement with the rapists ........ anyone agree ?
Yes
So those who don't agree with you deserve to be raped and imprisoned?
Well, that's a civilized view.
Castration is not enough ...this barbaric behavior deserves the death penalty. the human race has no room for these demons to walk amongst us. Women need to unite and turn this around (it is world wide)...this is what they think of us, this is how they treat us, this has got to end (and when I say They, I dont mean all men)...I mean the sick scum that puts value on nothing
Women do need to unite and respect themselves and demand that same respect from men and stop selling out so cheaply that they make all women targets. I am ashamed of whores. It's this kind of behavior that encourages men to just grap whatever they want. They need to know that men will unite, find them and see that justice is served.
These were not men, they were animals! This was a young girl, just 17. I suggest the perps be sent to my house for me to deal with. They certainly wouldn't be "men" anymore.
You haven't heard much about men throwing acid in women's faces since that Man in the middle east got the same thing as a court ordered punishment.
Publicly chopping off the penis might be a good solution. In fact, it would probably stop the common practice of gang raping all together.
An eye for an eye!
I have a problem with anyone who even thinks up mutilating someone else for revenge or punishment. You gotta be really twisted and evil yourself, think about it. I am no stranger to wanting to kick someone's arse or even having to kill some monster in self defense, but I get no pleasure out of doing some sick thing to someone as pay back. Jesus said an eye for an eye is wrong, and you can see why when you look at the middle east. The murder never ends and most is to punish and payback others.
Cheesy, the key phrase in your comment was "...that Man in the middle east...". Tell you what, if you think the camel-jocks' way of doing things is so grand, feel free to go to Cameljockeyville and become one of them. Here in the USA, we put the 8th Amendment into the Bill of Rights because we were repulsed by the barbarism that the English monarchy had sanctioned against its own subjects. I do suppose you've heard of the "Tower of London," have you not? Sure, we'd all like to tear these guys limb from limb, and seeing that done might give a few fleeting nanoseconds of satisfaction, but the power you give to your government today to satisfy your indignation, becomes tomorrow's tyranny against the same citizenry. The Founding Fathers had it right with the 8th Amendment. A quick hanging or firing squad would be sufficient, and be done with it.
Cowards... can't think of any crime that deserves the death penalty more than this type of crime.
Poor kid, hope God keeps her close.
No two ways about it ladies. Stay away from monsters. Just because a boy/man smiles real pretty, does not always mean he is nice. Have husbands and fathers for your children. If you have sons, be sure of the kind of men they are growing up to be. Talk to them, teach them how to treat women. Don't ever be a doormat and make sure that you live respectably so your sons know what a real woman is supposed to be behave like. Also teach them to have mercy on the young women who don't like or respect themselves if they act easy. Even my sons talked about girls like this, and I tried to explain how sad these girls were and it usually is not their fault that their fathers may have failed at loving them while they were growing up. I told them that these are the girls that need to be treated with care. They sometimes got dumped for being "too nice." That's sad. These monsters that did this were not just some loving, nice guys that made a mistake. This was deliberate evil and they will pay one day, even if no one catches them.
first of all, i have no idea why this was turning political. this is a brutal, tragic story.. the victim is not to blame, and it is very sad for her family.
Keep it up humans, more amunition to destroy your freakin arses...
This poor girl should have been aborted thus never been abused like this. Now as you cry in your liberal bowl of popcorn please join me in aborting babies that my grow to be fat.
David, are you being sarcastic or did you get hold of some bad acid?
Executions need to be stepped up. All liberals should be executed. Rapists, gangmmembers, murderers, pedophiles, drug dealers and so forth. They need to be put in concentration camps and tortured to death. Put those idiots from amnesty international in that group too.
Here's a better idea, ask each one of the perpetrators, upon conviction, which they would rather have, life in some hellhole of a prison, or execution.
Then do the opposite.
Everything the USA touches in its "humanitarian" efforts turns to manure. We destabilize 'em, get the Jew bankers in, and forget em.
Aw David. Jealousy is a terrible way to suffer
Shock and outrage? Why now do you suddenly see a problem? You are raising these little dirt bags to hate and rape women- it's gone on for centuries and you have done nothing about it! This is disgusting.
Too bad they waited until after she was dead to say "Enough is Enough" That can be the new slogan after the next 1000 gets raped and murdered
I wrote a blog in this subject when the girl from India was raped and murdered. At least there, there is the chance to put the maggots who did that crime to death. Since the Death Penalty has been erased by a do gooder liberal in africa, Mandela, the best we can hope for, to balance this girls death, is life in prison. What good is life in prison? The forfieture of life itself, is the only reasonable balance.
I was shocked and deeply saddened when I read what was done to that precious girl. Only Divine intervention during the war of Armageddon in the near future will bring these atrocities to an end forever.
Why do men hate us so?
"Nelson Mandela's "Rainbow Nation" abolished the death penalty."
Therein lies part of the problem.
The parent(s) of this girl should be able to determine the fate of her murderers, and the sentence should apply to ALL rapists, everywhere..........everytime............