Last week Solomon Mhlongo was sentenced to an effective 23 years in prison for the murder of his common-law wife Elizabeth and five-year old daughter Tlaleng. Two years earlier he emptied a magazine of bullets into Elizabeth and Tlaleng, stopped…
The opinions Judge Willis expressed in the case of Beverly Whitehead versus Woolworths have earned him column inches of notoriety. But his judicial musings on the proper place and nature of women are not new; indications of his conservativism were…
Since the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) started operating three years ago in April 1997 over 2100 people have died as a result of police action or in police custody. Despite the high number of these deaths however there appears to…
A draft bill that will allow any survivor of a reported rape to apply to have the rape suspect(s) tested for HIV/Aids is under discussion. Not only might this enable women to obtain some peace of mind about their attackers'…
South Africa does not yet understand much about the relationship between poverty and crime. About the closest we ever come is the 'poverty-and-violence-causes-crime' thesis. However, this explanation not only libels the poor and unemployed generally, it is also inadequate. Single…
Recent news reports have highlighted research around rape by sociobiologists Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer. Their claim about the cause of rape is controversial indeed. Essentially, they state that rape is a behaviour evolved by unsuccessful men to gain sexual…