4.2.1. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NGOs TARGETING THE FAMILY AND COMMUNITY The family is an important site for support to the victim. It is therefore imperative that counseling and other psychosocial support also be aimed at ensuring the family and in particular, the primary caregiver, is able to provide effective support to the victim, besides being able to cope with the rape themselves. As is clear from most of the cases, caregivers struggle with guilt and with understanding what happened to the victim. They also struggle with knowing how best to support the victims when the family is back within the community. Counseling for both and in particular on-going counseling post trial is critical. The vulnerability of children to sexual abuse within the family unit needs to be understood by all stakeholders and interventions specifically targeting the family unit developed. As was apparent in Patricia’s case, it was the intervention of a member of the community which took her away from the unsafe environment of the family unit where the rape was occurring. It therefore important that stakeholders strengthen and empower community structures to be better able to identify and respond to and support victims of sexual violence within their locales. This includes ensuring that provisions in the Domestic Violence Act empowering third parties to make reports on behalf of victims are fully understood and communities encouraged to utilize them. It is also important that the potential impact of making a report to the police is understood from the perspective of loss of support to the family and destruction of family bonds and that families are supported to better cope. In the case of Diana, the family lost their home and they lost their breadwinner as soon as a report was made to the police. Any counseling therefore needs to take into account the likely impact of reporting the perpetrator and families supported to come up with possible mitigation measures. It is also important for families to be made aware that reporting cases late and family level resolution of cases will not help the survivor at all as she stands to lose either way; either as the case will most likely be lost at court for want of adequate evidence or as the perpetrator fails to honour his part of the agreement. 4.3. ISSUES FOR THE POLICE, PROSECUTION AND MAGISTRATES Survivor centred approaches mean that the needs of the survivor are taken into account as much as possible by the different stakeholders. In some of the cases, there was no evidence of this having happened as victims did not know at what stage their cases were, and in the event of their being concluded, they did not understand what the verdict meant as the prosecution did not take the time to explain what had happened in court. This fostered suspicion among the victim’s family and the wider community. Because HIV is a reality, testing for HIV for the perpetrator must be routine. In some of the cases, there was no evidence that the perpetrator had been tested for HIV at all. In some cases, police have refused to open dockets where they believe that the victim took too long to make a report. In other instances, accused persons have been acquitted where the courts have taken delays in reporting to mean the victim was a willing participant in the conduct complained of. In some instances, the circumstances of the case have seemed to indicate the complicity of a third party in the commission of the offence. For instance Patricia’s case where her great aunt ostensibly took her home with her on holiday, only to immediately leave her, and to repeatedly do so, despite Patricia alerting her to the rape that was happening each time she left. The circumstances surrounding the rape were not investigated from the point of view of complicity and yet as is apparent from Tinashe’s case, cultural and religious beliefs are often used as a basis for perpetrating abuse against children. 28 32