A Bloemfontein man has started to serve his life jail term for raping his 16-year-old stepdaughter and infecting her with HIV.
The local magistrate’s court sentenced the man yesterday.
In 2020, the young girl reported that the stepfather raped her while she was staying with him, her mother and younger sister in a shack in Bloemspruit.
She had said the incident had happened while her mother was admitted to hospital.
Police say the young girl reported the incident when she was sent to visit a relative in Sasolburg.
Almost 40% percent of women in South Africa experience lifetime physical and sexual violence.
This is one of the findings revealed in the first national gender-based violence study by the Human Sciences Research Council, published last year.
The country has some of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world, including rape, femicide and domestic abuse.
In the video below, SABC News reporter Hasina Gori expands on these findings:
