Facts and Estimates, let's be clear about which is which

"One in every two women is raped in South Africa" stated a pamphlet handed out at a school recently. "The fact is that 500,000 women are raped every year in South Africa" said the Natal Mercury in August. "We’re losing the war against rape" says the Sunday Times of September 23.

There is no denying that rape in SA is a significant challenge, but what are the "facts" and what are the estimates, and why is this important?

Firstly, the "facts" must recognise that there are well-reported crimes, like murder (a body), or car theft (a claim), and poorly reported crimes like rape (definition vs reported vs unreported), assault (definition vs reported vs unreported). In SA we have approx. 47,500 reported rapes annually. Researchers tell us that worldwide rape is a very poorly reported crime, some estimate that only 2 – 5% of actual rapes are reported, but who really knows? Our reported rape has gone down marginally in SA, but is that because there is less of it or because the willingness to report it has changed?

Chandre Gould, senior researcher in the Crime and Justice Programme at the Institute for Security Studies, reports that the 2011 National Victims of Crime Survey informs that a third of the victims of sexual offences were victimised by someone they knew; that 20.9% were perpetrated by the spouse or partner; that 58.8% occurred at the home of the victims; and that domestic violence is responsible for 57% of the intentional deaths of women.

It is estimated that one in 13 rapes by a non-partner and one in 25 by a partner are reported to the police, the projection follows that there are 500,000 rapes per annum in SA.

It is also a fact that in SA 85% of the victims of violent crime know their attackers by name, and 65% of the victims are either drunk or full of drugs at the time of the attack (2011 National Victims of Crime Survey).

Rape is therefore deeply rooted in domestic violence, this is important in respect how it is reported, particularly because the random probability of it occurring between total strangers is significantly less.

My concern is that if we start using estimates – better phrased as guestimates - based on what researchers think – without framing the social context - then in no time at all these guestimates become bald, uncontextualised and uncontested ‘facts’, and a number of new ‘guestimates’ and horrible exaggerations emerge. For example, we learn that one in two women in South Africa is raped, this is because the researcher believes it is fair to argue that "at 500 000 per annum x 40 years (alleged as the rape-able lifespan of the average woman!!!), then 20 million rapes over a 40 year period in SA is for real". Is this bald, uncontextualised ‘fact’ the truth? – or is it conventional wisdom madness at its worst?

In a similar vein we are told that ‘SA schools are the most violent in the world’ (by the SAIRR) we dig down, discover that this ‘finding’ is based on the PIRLS (Progress in Reading and Literacy in Schools) report, a survey of 40 countries in the world, with 120 questions on literacy and reading in schools, one of which reads "Do you experience violence injury or theft (i) more than twice a month (ii) less that once a month (iii) somewhere in between. 4% of SA kids answer "more than twice a month", 23% answer "less that once a month" and 73% answer "somewhere in between". In 12 European countries the percentages of ‘more than twice a month’ answers were higher than for SA (France / Germany 7%+), But SA was bottom of the log in answer to the question "less than once a month". The researcher then claims that only 23% of our kids feel safe in school, ‘the worst in the world’ he gloats.

With rape are we the worst in the world? We may be amongst the worst in the reported world, but that is very different. There are 90 or so countries that do not report their rape figures (cold comfort), as Wikipedia states. "Statistics on rape and sexual assault are commonly available in advanced countries and are becoming more common throughout the world. Inconsistent definitions of rape, different rates of reporting, recording, prosecution and conviction for rape create controversial statistical disparities, and lead to accusations that many rape statistics are unreliable or misleading".

Our official figures are bad, of that there is no question, but they are bad everywhere, and crime is on the increase in many countries in the world (thankfully not in SA). Britain’s own newspapers now claim that the UK is more violent than SA. New Zealand’s Govt. website reports a 44% increase in petty crime over the past 3 years and ‘amongst the worst incidence of child abuse in the world’.

Care and sensitivity is required as we report on these complicated social issues, and the statistics must be contextualised. That we need to acknowledge the problem and confront the challenges is beyond question. But, we should take equal care to avoid making the ‘guestimates’ the facts, the ‘guestimated facts’ the projections, and the ‘guestimated projections’ the truth. This kind of conventional wisdom madness will distort the reality and have us spiraling into ill-informed despair.