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American raped at UKZN November 14 2007 at 11:41AM
By Amelia Naidoo
"We are going to tell our friends not to come here." That is the reaction of furious American exchange students after the rape of a Californian girl at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) residence early on Tuesday.
They say university authorities have been alerted several times about assaults on female students and these have been ignored.
The 21-year-old exchange student was raped at 1.30am in a toilet cubicle at the Mabel Palmer student residence, on the Howard College campus, police spokesperson Inspector Michael Read confirmed.
Students at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) have also claimed they are soft targets for criminals, with students being robbed of cellphones, bags and jewellery.
Police revealed that on Friday night, a suspected mugger was chased by a large group of people - including students - and stoned to death.
Read confirmed a DUT student was robbed of her cellphone in Winterton Walk and that a mob of angry youths chased the alleged robber and stoned him to death.
He said the group responsible for stoning the suspect managed to catch and overpower him. He urged students and the public not to take the law into their own hands.
Read said initial investigations revealed the rape of the student was committed by one person and no arrests have yet been made. The university's investigations manager Peter Korte believes the rapist was "an insider".
Korte said the student, who lives at the residence, did not see her attacker as she was not wearing her glasses. She was taken to King Edward VIII Hospital where she was treated, and anti-retrovirals administered.
The victim was subsequently moved to a safe house and will be given trauma counselling by UKZN's student counselling services, said Korte.
She was extremely traumatised and did not want to speak to anyone, her friend and fellow exchange student, Abdul Ghani, said.
"She's been here since January and loved this place."
Meanwhile, angry exchange students said the incident could have been avoided as they had previously raised concerns about violent crimes at the campus residences with the Risk Management Services (RMS).
Five concerned students met with the RMS staff and university officials on Tuesday to discuss the incident.
However, they were frustrated "because they kept throwing statistics at us to shut us up. We just felt that not enough was being done about the crime", said exchange student, Nimit Mehta, of New York.
Some weeks ago a female student's boyfriend - who was not a student - got on to the campus, into the residence and beat her with a crowbar, said Ghani.
The man came back later and threatened to shoot somebody on the campus.
Korte said the man, who did not have a gun after all, was caught and a guard was posted outside the residence.
"We also had an incident where a girl was knifed and another where a boyfriend beat his girlfriend with a kettle - we brought this to the RMS's attention, but they didn't seem to care," said Ghani.
Stolen
Mehta has had his belongings stolen at the residences and was also mugged at knifepoint while walking to campus. His friends have also been mugged during their stay.
"Despite all this, I've enjoyed my stay and the people are amazing. More often than not foreigners say South Africa is such a great country except for the crime.
"I can fend for myself, but I certainly will not be encouraging any of my friends to come here, especially the girls."
Korte acknowledged there was crime on campus, but said there were far more off-campus incidents than on-campus ones.
Apparently the university had much success in apprehending suspects who commit crime on campus, and security was beefed up where necessary.
And even though incidents off-campus are not within UKZN's jurisdiction, guards still patrolled the streets just outside the campus he said.
On-campus crimes were mainly sparked by altercations among students, and often attacks on girlfriends by their boyfriends.
Other security problems, Korte highlighted, included students lending strangers their access cards, which allowed them to enter residences.
"Students often allow outsiders into their residences because the guy looks familiar and may have dated one of the students. What they don't know is that the couple could have broken up and the boyfriend returns to give his girlfriend a beating."
UKZN student representative council president Sanele Shabalala condemned the rape, and he was committed to bringing the perpetrator to book.
This article was originally published on page 1 of Daily News on November 14, 2007
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