Johannesburg - How do you rehabilitate a mother or father who raped or abetted the molestation of their own infant?
It’s a question that has left one of South Africa’s top forensic psychologists stumped.
“I honestly don’t know what could be done with this person for rehabilitation,” said Dr Gérard Labuschagne, the former head of the SAPS investigative psychology section.
Earlier this week, a Meadowlands woman was convicted for assisting a man to rape her two-month-old daughter and subsequently lying to authorities to protect his identity, thus far preventing him from being arrested.
While the State believes the man responsible for the rape was the woman’s husband, it’s unclear if it was his own daughter whom he had so grievously attacked.
Labuschagne said that in similar cases of infant abuse, it would typically not be the biological father who would commit the crime.
From his experience, it would usually be a spurned lover - someone unrelated to the baby. “But when it’s your own child, you have to bring in the aspects of incest alongside the paedophilia ,” he said.
When an adult grooms an older child with paedophilic intent, even in an incestuous situation, there is manipulation, according to Labuschagne, but obviously this could not happen with an infant.
“There’s just a level of sexual sadism. It’s horrific,” he said.
All involved in such cases should also be charged with attempted murder because of the damage an infant would likely suffer.
Labuschagne said in such cases of a mother allowing such a crime, one would have to look at the relationship between her and the perpetrator.
“Does she in general acquiesce to his demands? Was there an abusive relationship?” he asked. In such cases, recommendations of rehabilitation were incredibly difficult. “It’s such a unique category of crime. There aren’t - thankfully - enough incidents like this, so there aren’t any studies being conducted on the reasons why.
“Cases like these are so rare, trying to analyse this behaviour (without working on the case itself) would be speculating,” he said.
As the Soweto mother awaits her sentencing, this week the High Court in Joburg reiterated the horrifying details of the tiny child’s trauma.
On November 6, 2016, a neighbour found the mother screaming in her room in Meadowlands as the baby struggled to breathe on the bed. While the mother insisted the baby had fallen off the bed, upon being taken to hospital, it was discovered the child’s genitals had been severely damaged and traces of semen were also detected.
The child was given immediate reconstructive surgery, but the woman continued to deny that anything untoward had happened to the child.
In the State’s heads of arguments, prosecutor Elivera du Plooy wrote: “The accused in her plea explanation, admitted that she lied to the hospital staff and SAPS to protect her husband.
"The proven, objective facts indicate that the victim was raped. Furthermore it is submitted that the only aspects in dispute are whether the accused herself inflicted the act of sexual penetration or whether she aided and abetted another person to do so.”
The prosecutor noted that the woman had lied on numerous occasions.
“The accused’s plea explanation indicated that the victim was injured when she fell on top of the victim while she was strapped in on the front part of the accused’s body (but) during (the doctor’s) testimony her version changed in that the child came loose from the way she was strapped and fell to the ground and that she then fell on top of the victim.”
Judge Carla van Veenendaal found the woman guilty of defeating the ends of justice and of aiding, instructing and commanding someone to commit rape.
She said she was shocked that a mother would collude with and even hide the identity of a man who had raped her daughter.