Jackrolling becomes more prevalent
It is absurd to wake up to a screaming news headline, “a 17-year-old boy allegedly raped the girl in the bathroom of Busisiwe Primary School in Zola, Soweto.”
A survey conducted among 1,500 schoolchildren in the Soweto township, showed that about a quarter of all the boys interviewed believed that ‘jackrolling’, a term for gang rape, was fun.
The word ‘jackroll’ was used to refer to the forceful abduction of women in black townships by a gang called the “Jackrollers” which operated in the years late 1980’s in the Diepkloof area of Soweto.
Jackrolling has now become a trend among some Soweto youth with the aim to impregnate every woman under the age of 26 in the township in order to “earn respect”. Jackrolling takes place
in public places which enhances the perpetrator’s status.
South Africa has the highest incidents of rape in the world. Gauteng community safety MEC, Faith Mazibuko told parents not to relegate their parental responsibility to government and teachers, and it is about time that the government change how they deal with the issues of rape in general.
She further said the Minister of women, children and people with disabilities should join hands with activists and law enforcement agents to form a unit to deal with rape. Campaigns to schools to teach young kids, especially boys about the dangers of engaging in rape and gang rape “jackrolling”, would be welcome.
“In South Africa we can no longer wait for yet another sex video before we express anger. The police have arrested only seven teenagers in Soweto but there are many other young kids across the country who thinks jackrolling (lepanta) is fashionable.” Isaac Mangena
