By Tania Broughton and Sapa
While the 16-day campaign against women and child abuse has been hailed as a success in terms of awareness, gender and child violence groups have called for an investigation into South Africa's "shockingly low" conviction rate for incidences of rape.
During the past two weeks, non-governmental organisations and the government have been engaged in the high-profile campaign aimed at creating public awareness of the human rights of women and children.
At a media conference in Johannesburg on Monday, civil organisations including Gender Link, the Men's Forum and the Network On Violence Against Women said the campaign had forced citizens to recognise the problem. But Gender Link said South Africa had one of the highest rates of gender violence in the world, while the conviction rate stood at a shocking seven percent.
"We call on president Thabo Mbeki to launch an urgent public inquiry into the low conviction for rape and institute an emergency action plan on gender violence against children, who constitute 40 percent of all rape cases," a Gender Link spokesperson said.
However, Thoko Majokweni, special director of public prosecutions in charge of the sexual offences and community affairs unit, said the real conviction rate - cases which were brought to trial - was between 51 and 90 percent.
"Gender Link is using the number of rape cases reported against the number of convictions. There is a high rate of withdrawal by complainants. There are also those cases where there is insufficient evidence and others where the complainant and witnesses cannot be found for trial.
"The test for prosecutors is the number of convictions based on the number of cases brought to court. In the regional courts, that is about 51 to 65 percent. In the sexual offences courts, we have conviction rates of up to 90 percent," she said.
She said any investigation must focus on "leaks" between reporting and prosecuting.
"We need to know why people are withdrawing charges - whether it is intimidation or an anticipated failure of the justice system. We need to look at this if we are to design a proper anti-rape strategy."
At the Durban child abuse court, an official said, the conviction rate was about 75 percent.
On Monday, the Legal Aid Board said it was paying special attention to the campaign, promising "in spite of the false impression that it only serves the accused", to also help victims.
The board said civil work on behalf of vulnerable groups accounted for about 30 percent of its work, relating to divorces, maintenance and domestic violence.