About Rape Crisis

Established in 1976, RCCTT (Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust) is one of the oldest and most experienced organisations in South Africa  working to end sexual violence against women.   On the 16th of December 2007 the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Amendment  Act came into effect.  Due to the redefinition of rape, (The act specifies that Rape occurs when one individual intentionally commits an act of sexual penetration into the vagina, anus or mouth of  another individual without their consent) both woman and men can use the law with regards rape.  We work to improve access to care, treatment and justice for rape survivors both female and male. We provide:

  • Counselling and support services to survivors and their partners, family and friends.
  • Awareness interventions in schools and communities.
  • Empowerment through our Rape Crisis volunteer programme.

We have also worked to reform laws and policies that affect survivors, with results including:

  • Changes to sexual offences legislation,
  • The setting up of specialised sexual offences courts,
  • The setting up of victim support centers at police stations
  • Dedicated medical facilities that provide an effective and efficient service for rape survivors.

What makes us different

RCCTT is one of South Africa’s most experienced organisations specialising in dealing with rape. We constantly share our experience and specialised skills at conferences, seminars and workshops.

We have adopted an integrated community development approach, and we are confident that we will continue to make positive changes to create a safer environment for rape survivors. We offer unique services like:

  • Support groups for rape survivors
  • Special support for survivors who want to share their experiences with the public
  • Aromatherapy treatments for rape survivors
  • Pre-trial consultation advice to rape survivors
  • 24-hour counseling and support for partners, family and friends of survivors
  • Helping other organisations develop submissions on various laws
  • Constructive relationships with key role players within the criminal justice system
  • Partnerships with the Mabuphele Campaign and the Saartjie Baartman Centre
  • Strong networking partnerships with networks, NGOs and community based organisations
  • Committed and passionate volunteers who are active within their community structures

Our philosophy

The Rape Crisis philosophy comes from the ideas of our founders, the women who started Rape Crisis in the late seventies. Their ideas were very simple and very powerful – so much so that they are just as relevant today as they were more than 30 years ago. The experiences behind these ideas are better explained in an article by our founder, Anne Mayne, called Rape Crisis: How It All Began

We believe that these ideas speak directly to the survivors of rape and that this focus on the needs of the rape survivor is what makes Rape Crisis strong.

  • Rape is a life threatening experience and surviving it requires an act of great courage.
  • Rape happens to all kinds of women and children from all walks of life.
  • The rapist is responsible for the rape and no survivor does anything to precipitate it even though she may think she has.
  • The feelings of being dirty and shameful belong to the perpetrator not to the survivor.
  • As a rape survivor you are not alone – almost all women have been forced into sexual experiences they did not choose or desire at some point in their lives.
  • Ordinary women can help you recover from rape and give you the support you need.
  • Everyone can learn the skills to fight the every day sexism in their lives.

Rape Crisis believes that men and women need to take shared responsibility to curb violence against women and it is through this partnership that real change will take place in our society. Only men who can see the imbalance of power and see that it happens in ordinary every day ways can help to change this. Only women who can see that men need help and encouragement to do this and to regain their dignity can help this change as well. Our public education projects focus on sharing information about rape and on challenging the social attitudes held by men and women that we believe contribute towards the perpetuation of sexual violence in our society.

We also believe that when women come together to work and speak freely without male stereotypes, of how this should be done we discover among us clear leaders who speak as themselves with intelligence, warmth and humour. Rape Crisis is committed to building strong female leaders as role models for young girls and women in our communities. Our advocacy program is a network of women from a diversity of backgrounds that is astonishing and that aims to give a voice to women who are after all half the population.

Rape Crisis counselling tells every woman she is brave for surviving, that it is her right to be in charge of her own healing and that she doesn’t have to do what other people tell her is good for her unless she believes it too – she is the expert. It tells her that she can make her own decisions and her strengths rather than her inadequacies are the main focus of her counsellor’s attention. Her counsellor is an ordinary woman, just like she is, who bears witness to her pain, makes sure she accesses all the organisation’s resources that she needs and acts as a liaison to resources outside Rape Crisis, particularly within the Criminal Justice System where we have very strong friends. Rape Crisis counsellors offer respect and support and the space we counsel in, is safe and comfortable.

The same is equally true for the men who are counselled at Rape Crisis.

How we function

Rape Crisis Cape Town was registered as a Trust in February 1999. The various forms within the organisation are as follows:
Management Structure
Board of Trustees
The Board fulfils the external management functions of the organisation. It comprises 7 elected and 3 ex-officio members (the Director, a Staff Representative and a Volunteer Representative), and is responsible for holding the ethos of the organisation in trust, giving it direction, deciding how it will be managed (rules of meetings and decision making, and policy development, etc.), overseeing the management of resources, acting as a court of appeal in disputes which internal management cannot resolve, and taking final legal and financial responsibility for the organisation. The Board meets quarterly. From among its own membership, the Board elects the office bearers, i.e. Chairperson, Vice-Chair and Treasurer.
Joint Strategy Meetings
All Project Coordinators, the Financial Manager and the Director form the Joint Strategy team and meet once a month to discuss projects. This team uses this space to discuss and formulate strategies that will assist in achieving the vision and mission of the organisation.
Staff Meetings
All staff meets on a monthly basis to discuss issues pertinent to staff and the organisation.
Focus Group Meetings
These forums involve the volunteers active within a particular focus group and the staff member who heads up that focus group. Thus the Observatory Counselling Group, and the Training & Public Awareness Group have their own monthly meeting, as do the Heideveld Training & Public Awareness Group, and Khayelitsha Counselling and Training & Public Awareness Groups. The Focus Group meetings make practical decisions about the ways in which they will function. They are forums where volunteers make inputs into policy development, evaluation of our work, and proposals about new positions, new policies etc. Focus Group meetings are also places of support and supervision for volunteers, and they identify areas where ongoing training and specialised inputs are required to sustain and improve our services. Where appropriate, joint Focus Group meetings are arranged across areas of work and across offices to build relationships within the organisation as a whole.
Volunteer Forum
This is a new forum within Rape Crisis Cape Town, and its role is being defined, although in some ways it fulfils the functions of the old General Meeting. It is envisaged that it will be a place where all volunteers across the organisation can meet to discuss issues of common concern, and to ensure that these are reflected at Board level via the Volunteer Representative. The Volunteer Forum is also a social opportunity and supper is served at the conclusion of these meetings. The Volunteer Forum meets every three months (March, June, September and December).
Annual General Meeting
The AGM is held each year, within six months of the end of our financial year. This means that we usually hold it before the end of September. The purpose of the AGM is to report to friends and the public at large on our work and especially on how we have spent our budget during the previous twelve months. The AGM is also usually the place where we formally appoint our auditors. The appointment of new Board members is also done at the AGM, as well as confirming the members of the Board.

Should a position on the Board become vacant for whatever reason, nominations for a new Board member would be called for from the organisation as a whole. This requires that members of the organisation both propose and motivate for new Board members, and at least two RCCT members have to nominate and second prospective new Board members. The remaining members of the Board then elect the new member from the nominations.
Decision making
Depending on the issue, the process of decision making would involve discussions at volunteer level at Focus Group meetings or Volunteer Forum and then either Staff or JSM level, depending on whether it is related to the organisation or a project. After consultation with both the volunteers and the staff, decisions could be made at staff or JSM level and some referred to the Board for ratification, depending on the matter.

The process is not as cumbersome as it might seem, and it ensures that Rape Crisis Cape Town has entrenched in it’s decision making as wide and democratic a representation as is possible. With the added value of communication technology, we have attempted to retain as far as is practical our commitment to being a democratic organisation.
Feminist counselling
The work of counselling involoves creating a space in which someone can find her way back into her life. Given that women often experience ourselves as powerless or “stuck”, counselling involves a primary commitment to validating a woman’s right to her feelings, decisions, and intelligence.

Abuse makes everyone feel inferior and disrespected. It is all too easy for these feelings to complement low self-esteem or dependency many women already experience through their relations to men (and other women!) at work and in their families.

Women’s immense strength, courage, intelligence, and strategic know-how very rarely get valued in systematic ways. In counseling, the value given to a woman’s own self (her particular way of thinking, being, and feeling) can reveal for her - and the listener - the inner resources she posseses. It is these resources which can empower her into recovery from what she has experienced - a recovery which is about regaining the “self” sexual violence attempted to destroy.

In that the work of counselling assumes women’s right to self-definition and to control over our own lives, it is feminist.

It is also feminist in its commitment to complete social equality, and in its recognition of the need to learn everything possible about the way both privilege and discrimination have distorted and shaped out ideas and lives.

Rape Crisis Cape Town Annual Report 2008/9

Our Annual Report is now available for download:
Rape Crisis Cape Town Annual Report 2008/9 [PDF, 1.6MB]

Rape Crisis Cape Town Annual Report 2010

Our Annual Report is now available for download:
Rape Crisis Cape Town Annual Report 2010 [PDF, 0.9MB]