Calls for CHEMICAL CASTRATION grow as 8 models filming gospel music video gang-raped by over 80 gunmen
In a shocking incident, a gang of 80 gunmen forced their way into a gospel music video shoot and raped eight young women from the cast near an illegal gold mine in South Africa. The horrific gang rape took place on Thursday, July 28, when a production team was filming out in the wilds near West Village, Krugersdorp, near Johannesburg. The men were arrested and appeared before a court on Monday, August 1, reported Daily Mail.
This mass sexual assault has prompted calls for the chemical castration of convicted rapists as South Africa has some of the highest crime rates and the third highest rate of rape in the world. According to Daily Mail, a small group of demonstrators gathered outside the court on Monday demanding swift justice. Some held signs reading 'no bail for rapists', 'am I next' and 'my body is not a crime scene'.
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The incident has also piled pressure on Police Minister Bheki Cele, with critics contending law enforcement agencies are ill-equipped to tackle crime in the country, which has some of the highest murder rates in the world and has recently been hit by a spate of deadly shootings. President Cyril Ramaphosa said the "horrible acts of brutality are an affront to the right of women and girls to live and work in freedom and safety" as he declared that 'rapists have no place in our society'.
"What happened in Krugersdorp is just a shame of the nation," Cele told a press briefing on Monday, adding some of the victims would suffer long-term consequences. "Some of those destructions are permanent with those kids," he said. Illegal immigrants working in mines who are locally known as Zama Zama have been blamed by the police.
On Monday, those held started to appear before a court on charges of entering the country illegally and possessing stolen goods. National police chief Fannie Masemola said a probe would establish if the suspects were linked to the rape. No one has yet been charged over the gang-rape. According to DailyMail, there are many other illegal mines in the location where the crime took place and it is thought that the sound of the music attracted the attention of illegal miners.
There were 12 women and 10 men involved in the film shoot and it is believed all the models were from nearby Johannesburg and had been hired for the day. The girls tried to run when attackers burst out of the bushes wearing balaclavas and Basotho blankets but the gang fired a volley of gunshots at them. The gang took the models one at a time into the bushes while the robberies continued and the gang raped them up to ten times each before returning for another victim. The gang whistled and another ten men in balaclavas appeared from the scrub while the models and production crew were ordered to lay down. Besides robbing of mobile phones, rings, jewelry, handbags, cash, and cameras, the models and the crew members were raped up to ten times each, with the youngest victim, a 19-year-old, raped 10 times and the eldest being 37.
Times Live reported that a 19-year-old victim related how she lied to her attacker that she had suffered a miscarriage to be saved from being raped further. "I had no way out but to lie, because they were picking us up one by one. There were others who were raped by six to 10 men," she said. Her 21-year-old sister, who was raped in a ditch, said the girls' ordeal lasted four hours. The woman who had organized the models for the shoot said that she tried to protect them from the rapists and she was violated first. "They kept telling the younger boys to rape us and they'd hit them and force them to do so," she said.
A gunfight broke out when South African Police Services arrived at the scene and two illegal miners were shot dead and another injured but 17 managed to escape. Police also arrested 65 other illegal miners in the area for suspected immigration offenses while launching a massive manhunt for the rape gang in the wilds.