JACK ROLLING gangs have long terrorised South Africa’s violent black townships where rape is a daily reality for millions of women.

At the height of jack rolling in the turbulent 1990s, raiding parties would take women and young girls off at gunpoint, even from school playgrounds, or grab them from a bus stop.

They would be kept prisoner in a house or hostel while the men drank beer, played cards, or watched television, occasionally breaking off to rape the victim. The ordeal could last several days.

Most of the rapists regarded it as a leisure activity or “just a bit of a game”, according to a recent study of male attitudes towards women. Boys as young as 15 said that they thought jack rolling was cool.

The country’s HIV-Aids crisis and several well-publicised trials of gang rapists caused the number of incidents to tail off in recent years, with the Government eager to shed its image as a country with one of the worst crime rates in the world. Cases are, however, still reported with alarming frequency.

One anti-rape organisation recently estimated that a woman was raped every 85 seconds in South Africa. Others put it higher but all agree that gang rape accounts for 75 per cent of all cases. The National Institute for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation estimates that only one in about twenty rapes is reported to police.

An estimated 600 to 1,000 people die every day in South Africa from Aids-related illnesses.

Rose Thamae, who runs a self-help group for girls and women who become HIVpositive because of gang rape, said that rape in the townships still happened every night.

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