By Tania Broughton and Zukile Majova

He stood in the dock, face in his hands, crying uncontrollably, a broken man unable to speak.

Arrested for fraud, he had spent just one night in the awaiting-trial section of Westville Prison where he had been sexually assaulted by other prisoners.

His family waited outside the courtroom unable to bear his trauma. His attorney told the magistrate about the attack and the court ordered that he be kept in isolation.

When he appeared in court again later in the week, he begged for bail.

"I will do anything please... my life this week... I cannot go through it again."

He described how he had been put in a cell with 60 people who were forced to sleep head to toe.

The only white man in the cell, he believes it was his race which made him easy prey. He broke down as he began explaining how he had been forced to strip. The magistrate ordered that the press and the public leave the courtroom.

"They will kill me if this comes out," he said.

In the interests of his safety - his bail application has still not been finalised - and in the interests of privacy, the Independent on Saturday has decided to withhold all details which could identify him.

It is rare for someone to publicly admit in court that he has been sexually assaulted or raped in prison.

Victor Monyemangene, national spokesperson for the department of correctional services, says rapes are not prevalent - that the issue has been sensationalised by the media, with alleged victims using the media and the courts to make unsubstantiated allegations.

"In the past three months, we have not received a single report of a rape incident," he said.

"While rapes are isolated, we cannot say the same of consenting sex which has become so common we have been forced to provide condom dispensers."

But legal experts believe it is a grossly under-reported crime, mainly owing to shame and fear.

With the incidence of HIV/Aids in South Africa - and there being no anti-retroviral drugs available in prisons - a night in the cells could quite literally be a death sentence.

"It's one of the reasons defence attorneys try to get their clients kept at police cells," said a Durban criminal lawyer.

Another lawyer said: "The threat of this is constant and the only way out is to pay for protection."

Nobody was able to provide statistics on the incidence of rape or indecent assault in prisons.

Inspecting Judge Hannes Fagan said: "Very few men are prepared to talk about it... even our inspectors only hear stories, and then some months after the fact."

He said overcrowding was the cause of the problem.

"When you put 100 people in a cell designed for 30 you are asking for trouble. It is not really the fault of the prisons because when those vans arrive from court the prisons are obliged legally to accommodate the prisoners."

He said while a raped prisoner could have a civil claim against the department of correctional services, it was unlikely to succeed.

"What can they do? The police are arresting too many people for too many trivial offences. We already have too many prisons and they are bursting at the seams."

Most rapes, it seems, happen in the awaiting trial sections of the prisons, where about 50 000 people are languishing in South Africa.

Because many spend months there, gang activity is rife and, compared with the "sentenced" sections of the prisons, supervision is limited.

"It is often young people who are in prison for the first time who get preyed upon," says Correctional Services Communications Director in the Western Cape Eddie Johnson.

He is also the co-founder of a voluntary organisation based at Pollsmoor Prison called "Friends Against Abuse", which aims at getting raped prisoners to break their silence.

The organisation was founded on the firm belief that unless those raped received some counselling, they would eventually turn into rapists themselves.

Over the past three years the organisation has dealt with between 100 and 120 rape cases.

"It's progress, but not as much progress as we wanted," he says.

The organisation provides basic counselling, advises the victims to lay criminal charges and, if possible, arranges for them to be kept in cells separate from their rapists.

The organisation is seeking funding and assistance from the community and hopes to extend its services to other prisons where, Johnson says, "people are crying out for help".

"It is totally unacceptable. The authorities do nothing to combat rape. And the blame can be put at the door of Correctional Services, the police, the courts and the legislature," he said.

taken from http://www.southafrica.com/forums/open-board/5354-we-need-break-silence-over-jail-rape.html