“They abduct us and rape us: Adolescents’ participatory visual reflections of their vulnerability to sexual violence in South African townships

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114401Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Adolescents are vulnerable to abduction and rape.

  • The unequal dynamics of township communities facilitates violence.

  • Perpetrators use violence to maintain power.

  • Storyboards and cellphilms allow for developing rapport.

  • PVM provides adolescents with visual representations of their vulnerability.

Abstract

The abduction and sexual violation of adolescents, especially in township contexts, has increasingly made headlines in South Africa. These incidents are evocative of jackrolling, a phenomenon that plagued townships during the apartheid upheavals in the late 1980s. The abduction of adolescents on their school journeys has been reported in several South African townships. In this paper, we report on a study in which we used participatory visual methods (i.e., cellphilms: short videos made with cellphones) to explore how 19 adolescent girls and boys living in the Inanda, Ntuzuma, and KwaMashu (INK) township precinct, outside Durban reflected on their vulnerability to sexual violence. Although the question was broad, our analysis of the visual data suggests that adolescents believed that their vulnerability to abduction and rape was almost inevitable. As such, in their cellphilms, they chose to portray their risk and vulnerability to abduction, rape, and even murder on their daily journeys to and from school. We found that through this methodology, adolescents were able to illustrate and/or articulate their fear of sexual violence. For them, violence was an inescapable reality that created fear and helplessness. This underscores the need for interventions, including the provision of safe scholar transport and visible policing in the community.

Introduction

International instruments (e.g., the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) and the South African Constitution enshrine children's right to safety from abuse, violence, and harm. However, violence against adolescents in South Africa is prevalent (Devries and Meinck, 2018; Ward et al., 2018). Data from the South African Police Services (SAPS, 2020) crime report shows that 45% of documented sexual assaults between 2018 and 2019, were against 10–18-year-olds. South African adolescents experience one of the highest rates of sexual violence globally (Ward et al., 2018), with at least 1 in 3 likely to be sexually assaulted in their lifetime (Artz et al., 2018). Evidence that sexual violence against adolescents is widespread has emerged in research (de Vries et al., 2014; Jewkes, 2018; Meinck et al., 2016; Mpalirwa, 2015) and more dramatically in media reports (Ngqakamba, 2019a, 2019b). Sexual violence against South African adolescents aged 13–18 years is a significant concern (Adlem, 2017), and a national catastrophe. For example, a nationally representative study of adolescents aged 15–17 years, revealed that 35.4% of those interviewed at school and 26.3% of those interviewed at home had experienced some form of sexual violence (Artz et al., 2018). A consistent finding across South African studies is that sexual violence is pronounced in working-class resource-poor communities (Abrahams et al., 2017, Ward et al., 2018). Recently, the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa (Lancaster, 2020) drew attention to acts of abduction of children on the school journey – acts reminiscent of jackrolling of the late 1980s. At the height of apartheid in the 1980s, amidst the political violence in South Africa, townships were plagued by jackrolling – the abduction, sexual assault, and even murder of adolescent girls – by groups of male youths associated with a gang called the Jackrollers (Tlhabi, 2017; Wood, 2005). In his 1991 paper, Steve Mokwena argued that jackrolling worked to punish adolescent girls perceived as ‘out of reach’ or too ‘snobbish’ for the mostly poor, under-educated, and unemployed township male youths. These adolescent girls, abducted primarily on the journey between their homes and schools, were raped, killed, and/or left to die in open fields or slums in and around their townships (Gqola, 2015). Jackrolling reinforced and normalised the kidnapping, rape, and murder of adolescent girls in working-class communities. Stemming from the apartheid history in which jackrolling originated, current practices of abduction for rape perpetuate and widen patriarchal power imbalances and the social control of women and girls through sexual violence (Moffett, 2006).

More recently, the abduction of adolescents on the school journey has been reported in South African townships (Lancaster, 2020; Singh, 2017). For example, the SAPS crime statistics for April 2018–March 2019 indicate a 133% increase in cases of abductions reported to the police since 2010/2011 (SAPS, 2019). More than a quarter (27%) of these cases involved kidnapping to commit a sexual offence. Between March 2019 and March 2020, 16% of abductions were reported, with an additional 939 cases compared to the previous year (Lancaster, 2020; SAPS, 2020). While these cases are of national concern, the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) provinces reported particularly alarming increases in abduction cases, at 78% and 37%, respectively. Compounding this further is the practice of ukuthwala (Nkosi, 2009; Nkosi and Buthelezi, 2013), the abduction of girls and young women for customary marriage (Mwambene & Kruuse, 2017). Unpacking this phenomenon is beyond the scope of this paper, but its relevance is that abduction and sexual violence do not occur in a vacuum, but reflect broader and often gendered socio-cultural practices and violence in South Africa.

There are approximately 2.8 million children in KZN schools (Statistics South Africa, 2016), two million of whom walk to school daily (Joseph and Carpenter, 2017). KZN, the province where this study was located, is a predominantly poor rural province with significant infrastructural shortages (KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education, 2017). The school journey is therefore potentially dangerous since adolescents must navigate treacherous terrains at the risk of being kidnapped, physically attacked, mugged, and/or sexually abused (Equal Education, 2017). The perilous journey to school has attracted considerable social attention. For example, the Sunday Times reported on the sexual assault of an adolescent girl after she was abducted on her way to school in the southern suburbs of Cape Town (Chambers, 2018). At the time, 13 other adolescent abductions were reported in Cape Town townships (Qukula, 2018). Around South African townships, reports suggest that adolescents have been confronted and/or abducted by men (who are often armed with weapons) forced into perpetrators’ cars, raped, and even murdered (Mjekula, 2018; Mlamla, 2018).

Despite the overwhelming evidence of the violence, including sexual violence, children face on their school journeys (Burton and Leoschut, 2012), literature on adolescents' experiences of violence on their way to and from school in the global south, including South Africa, is fairly limited. Exceptions include two short documentaries titled, “On the way to school” (Javoy et al., 2015) and “Long walk to school” (Equal Education, 2017). The former focuses on the dangers that children in Kenya, Morocco, Argentina and India face when walking to school, while the latter captures the victimisation of children who travel more than 12 km to school daily in KZN. Research evidence that this journey exposes adolescents to a variety of verbal, physical, and sexual assaults is also growing (Porter et al., 2010). For example, Pells and Morrow (2017) examined the experiences of violence encountered by children on the school journey in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam and found that girls experienced frequent sexual harassment and bullying. Morojele (2013) examined how gender shaped children's walk through ‘dangerous routes to school’ in Lesotho and found that girls were often harassed by older boys and men. Likewise, in a study that used photovoice to explore children's journey to school in rural Lesotho, Muthukrishna and Morojele (2012) found that children attached complex emotions of fear in ways that indicated psychological trauma. Another qualitative study that examined everyday child mobility in Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa found that adolescent girls expressed a strong fear of rape (Porter et al., 2010). In addition, in a photovoice study of ‘what it is like to be an adolescent living in a semi-rural community in KZN’, sexual violence emerged as a significant concern for adolescent girls. They described constant vigilance of the places and spaces they navigated, which was psychologically taxing (Ngidi et al., 2018).

The violence that occurs on the school journey infringes adolescents' right to education and safety. In response to the fear of and actual victimisation of adolescents on the routes to school, parents in countries such as China, Indonesia, and Rwanda have resorted to walking with their children to ensure their safety (Porter et al., 2010). Similarly, in response to young girls’ concerns about their vulnerability to sexual violence in a semi-rural community in KZN (Ngidi et al., 2018), and lack of scholar transport, researchers developed a walking school bus intervention providing adult chaperones for adolescents to and from school (Essack and Ngidi, 2018).

While violence in schools has received considerable attention from scholars and activists globally, violence occurring outside school premises is relatively scant. In this paper, we report on a study that used cellphilms – short videos made with cellphones – to explore how 19 adolescents living in the Inanda, Ntuzuma, and Kwamashu (INK) township precinct, reflected on their vulnerability to sexual violence in their communities. In particular, we focus on the adolescents’ expressions of their vulnerability to sexual violence.

To understand the perpetration of sexual violence against adolescents in South African township communities, we draw on Connell (1987) theory of gender and power. The theory of gender and power is premised on the notion that three social structures characterise relationships between men and women/boys and girls in families, communities and institutions. For Connell, these include a) sexual division of labour, b) sexual division of power, and (c) the structure of cathexis (affective attachments and social norms). These structures are present at both the societal and institutional levels, and social mechanisms play an active role in maintaining them (Connell, 1987). This results in the creation and acceptance of power differentials across sex, gender, and age (Panchanadeswaran et al., 2007). These power differentials, in turn, create inequities in all spheres of women's and children's lives, including domestic, economic, and socio-cultural dimensions (Conroy et al., 2020). The interactions between the three structures further produce gender disparities and inequities that serve to heighten children's and women's vulnerability in various spheres, including to sexual violence (Connell, 1995). In this paper, we use the theory to highlight how unequal power and gender norms intersect with socio-economic factors to influence the vulnerability of adolescents to sexual violence generally, and to abduction and rape in particular (Wingood and DiClemente, 2000). We explore how unequal power and socio-cultural norms enable or facilitate sexual violence in this community.

Data for this paper is from a larger ethnographic study on adolescents' vulnerability to sexual violence in the INK townships. The larger study used participatory visual methodology (PVM) to understand adolescents’ vulnerability to sexual violence. PVM involves an “array of facilitated processes that support participants to produce their images or dramatisations” (Black et al., 2017: 22). The visual outputs are used by participants (the producers of the visuals) to tell personal stories or to describe their lived experiences of issues important to them (Mitchell et al., 2017; Mitchell and Moletsane, 2018).

For this paper, first, we analyse data generated through cellphilms. Cellphilm – cellphone and film – is a term coined by Dockney et al. (2010) to describe producing short films using cellular phones. Using cellphilms has gained prominence in recent years (MacEntee et al., 2016). For example, de Lange, Moletsane and Mitchell (2015) used cellphilms with female university students to explore and address sexual violence on campus, while MacEntee (2015) worked with high school children to understand the relationship between cell phones and GBV, and Mitchell et al. (2016) to explore experiences of the HIV/AIDS epidemic with teachers and community health workers. These scholars found cellphilms generative, insightful, and highlighted their significance and potential to democratise research environments. Second, the data presented here, is based on the storyboards developed by each group for their cellphilms, and the ensuing conversations and reflections on the cellphilms. Storyboards are visual story telling tools used for planning and communicating scenes of a story (Sova and Sova, 2006), and in this study, the participants used them to plan and describe their cellphilms.

We recruited participants from one co-educational school in the INK township area, about 30 km north of Durban. As Gibbs and colleagues (2014) argue, working-class township communities are sites of high rates of crime and violence. The INK townships have been noted for pervasive crime and violence, and schools within these townships are sites of multiple forms of violence against adolescents (Ngidi and Moletsane, 2018; Sibeko and Luthuli, 2018). Since 2016, these townships have been among the top 30 police stations in South Africa reporting high incidences of kidnapping and rape (SAPS, 2019). For example, between 2018 and 2019, a total of 662 cases of rape were documented in the INK police stations (SAPS, 2019). It is therefore not surprising that adolescents in these communities are vulnerable to sexual violence (Ngidi and Moletsane, 2018). It is within this context that the participants in this study lived.

The study used availability sampling to recruit 10 girls and 9 boys (N = 19 adolescents) aged 14–17 years old (mean age = 16) who lived in low-income households in the INK townships. All participants were dependant on social support grants and lived in either informal housing (shacks) or government-sponsored low-income housing settlements. Several steps were taken to ensure the safety and protection of participants, including several levels of negotiations with gatekeepers and participants. The University of KwaZulu-Natal College of Humanities and Social Sciences Ethics Committee, and the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education (KZN DoE) granted permission to conduct this research. Given that participants were minors, written informed consent was provided by their caregivers and informed assent came from the participants. Information and consent/assent letters were written in English and isiZulu (the local language of the study site). Noting that our study focused on a sensitive topic and worked with a group considered vulnerable, a referral system, for participants who might experience distress, was negotiated with two local social workers. This information, including the social workers’ contact details, was made available to the participants before and throughout the study. Four girls and one boy took up the services of the social worker during the course of the study.

To generate data, participants were engaged in a digital workshop (Mitchell, 2011) that lasted just over 4 hours. To start, we allowed participants to get familiar with cellphones, including using them to make short videos. We then introduced cellphilms, including the process of creating them and how they had been used in other research projects. We invited participants to ask questions or raise points of clarity. Once participants understood the technique, we invited them to produce their cellphilms, using the prompt: Produce a short film focusing on an aspect of vulnerability to sexual violence that matters the most to you.1 Producing the cellphilms occurred in the following phases.

  • Phase 1: Participants self-selected into four mixed-sex groups of 4–5 individuals each. Once constituted, each group brainstormed problems related to their vulnerability to sexual violence for their stories. The participants then decided on the outcome they wanted to achieve.

  • Phase 2: Based on the prompt, each group listed all their priorities regarding vulnerability to sexual violence on a flipchart. We asked each of them to vote, using three sticky dots, for the top three issues they felt were most important for them, and about which they would want to produce a cellphilm. Once everyone had ‘voted’, each group discussed how best to create their story. To our surprise, all the groups selected a topic on the abduction of children on the school journey.

  • Phase 3: We provided each group with a storyboard template on which to plan and execute their story and facilitated this process. We encouraged participants to have a maximum of six scenes for their films. Part of the analysis in this paper focuses on the storyboards produced in this phase.

  • Phase 4: We handed participants cellphones and they set off to produce their films. We allowed them as much time as they needed to make these films. First, the participants practised acting their roles before filming using the ‘No-Editing-Required’ (NER) technique (Mitchell, 2011). Once filming was concluded, we returned to the workshop venue and watched the films as a group. During the screening of the films, we invited participants to ask questions or comment on each story – a process that was digitally recorded with participants' permission.

Our data analysis was informed by John Fiske’s (1992) work, which advanced the idea of three sites of analysis. Fiske identifies the visual product (i.e., the cellphilm) as the primary text, what the producers (of the cellphilm) say about their productions (written or spoken descriptions) and how they experienced making them as the production text, and what the audience (those who come to see the images) say about the visual products is considered as the audience text (in this study the researchers became the audience). Therefore, analysis was in three layers: the first two layers entailed analysis and interpretation by participants themselves. We conducted the third layer by studying the storyboards and cellphilms and the meaning participants attached to their films.

Section snippets

Findings

This section begins with the storyboards from each cellphilm, before proceeding to a critical discussion of the key emerging themes. Pseudonyms are used to protect participants' identities. Child abductions and rape on the school journey, and while playing, featured prominently across the data, as reflected in the titles participants gave their productions. Mayibuye i-Africa (Africa must Return), speaks to a longing for a utopian Africa, where children are safe and protected from violence and

Discussion and conclusion

The findings from this study suggest that for the adolescents in this study, their school journeys are influenced by the power men have over girls, women and children. In this context, gender and power endangers adolescents, with girls being at more risk than boys. The cellphilms, in particular, illustrate what Mirkin (1984) calls ‘the power of the male’, in which she argues:

[adolescents] live under the power of the male, and they have access only to so much privilege or influence as the

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) (file number 107777–001) - https://doi.org/10.130–39/501100000193 - under an International Partnerships for Sustainable Societies (IPaSS) and the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) in South Africa. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the authors and not to be attributed to the IDRC or NIHSS.

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