Said Time magazine: "In 1998 the official South African rate was 104.1 rapes per 100,000 people; in the U.S., the rate was 34.4 per 100,000." However, rape researchers say only one in 35 rapes in South Africa is reported, which if accurate renders the situation far more critical than the official figures indicate.

David Jones, reporting from Johannesburg, closes his Daily Mail feature article with good advice for the government: "For the sake of every South African woman—whatever her colour—the leaders of this nation, in many ways so potent with promise, must address their growing humanitarian scandal with considerable urgency."

The Bible takes an even more serious view. "... For just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter" (Deuteronomy 22:26). The context makes it clear that the subject under discussion is rape (verses 25, 27). To God, rape is as serious a crime as murder because it destroys something that can never be replaced. (Sources: The Daily Mail [London], Time.)