Rape survivors aged from 15 to 77 years old spoke through an MP in the National Assembly on Tuesday, urging President Thabo Mbeki to focus on the war against women and children at home, rather than the conflict across the country's borders.
Other MPs, such as the Afrikaner Eenheidbeweging's Cassie Aucamp, said women also had a responsibility to avoid rape, and urged them to dress properly.
They should also avoid leading men on until boiling point and then "probeer keer vir jou wickets", he advised.
Much of the special debate was predictable, with speaker after speaker alluding to the number of women who were raped daily and urging tougher action against criminals.
The Freedom Front's General Constand Viljoen called for capital punishment to be reintroduced, while the African Christian Democratic Party's Cheryllyn Dudley urged MPs to recognise the causal link between pornography and rape.
Pan Africanist Congress MP Patricia de Lille used her speaking time to relay a message by rape survivors Charlene Smith, Amy Brown and others who she said did not want to be named.
Survivors of rape and their families were no longer interested in pious speeches but wanted to see rapists behind bars, De Lille said in a speech written by Smith.
"We want the support of government and communities in the healing of rape survivors and our families; we want a new South Africa where the rights of women and children are not just words in a Constitution."
If MPs were really serious about tackling the issue of rape, they should listen to the survivors.
But their message was lost as some MPs in the government benches heckled De Lille, who eventually lost her temper.
De Lille told MPs that the worst war on the continent was not in the Democratic Republic of the country, but at home in South Africa.
"It (the war) is taking place in the streets, schools and homes in South Africa. Home is where 60 percent of South African women and children will get raped."
De Lille questioned why South Africa was preparing troops for peacekeeping duties in the DRC, and not mobilising the police and soldiers to battle the sexual violence at home.
She closed her speech by turning on one of the ANC MPs she believed was responsible for the heckling, John Gogotya, and shouted: "Gogotya, you will be raped one day."
The Democratic Party's Raenette Taljaard said MPs had a responsibility to the millions of South African women, and the more than 131 women who were raped daily, to find ways and means and interim measures to deal with the crisis.
"While we are amending the relevant laws and setting up new specialised courts, 917 women will have been raped by Tuesday next week, and 4 585 women would have had their lives shattered by the end of November."
She questioned why plans to introduce victims' compensation legislation had gridlocked.
"Where is the statutory victims of crime charter promised in 1997 after a report by the South African Law Commission?
"Where is the fund for the victims of crime, and provisions for the proceeds of crime confiscated under the provisions of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act to be channelled to a fund for the victims of crime?"
Taljaard asked why Parliament had not yet passed amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act to make victim impact statements admissable as additional evidence, to be taken into account before sentencing.
The African National Congress's Pregs Govender said violence against women and children was a problem of the entire planet, not only South Africa,
It was not only the criminal justice system that had to be made to work.
Punishment and longer jail sentences were not enough.
"None of us can duck the challenge facing us - of transforming ourselves, our attitudes, each other's attitudes," Govender said.
The Inkatha Freedom Party's Sue Vos said it was obvious that the majority of South Africans wanted legislators to consider new ways to control violent offenders who treated the country's laws and their fellow citizens with contempt.
"There is a very real danger, and we all know it - that very soon groups of citizens may start taking the law into their own hands. In some of our townships it is already happening."
Vos said human rights were being abused in South Africa, not by government, but by "for the most part, faceless men who walk through our streets and sleep in our suburb".
She repeated calls for the government to urgently promote society's moral regeneration.
"It is time we showed that we can and will get tough. We in this government will unwittingly become a silent party to the abuse if we allow it to continue," she said. - Sapa