Rapex: The Anti-Rape Condom

Inventor Sonette Ehlers has introduced her anti-rape device Rapex in response to South Africa's rape crisis. Multiple metal spines inside a curious-looking piece of latex are supposed to separate victims from non-victims as they go about their daily lives.

Grizzly teeth supported by the sharp barbs will trap a potential rapist thereby causing him a mandatory hospital trip. The woman could walk away sans the would-be rapist's body fluids with her dignity unscathed. Rape in 21st century South Africa has turned into a war zone for women, girls and sometimes infants. HIV's million number menace somehow birthed the myth that sex with a virgin can cure a carrier. The United Nations reports that South African women are raped at a per capita rate of 119 per 100,000 people. South Africa's Police Service says that 41 percent of the rape victims are children.

A dangerous myth supported by the legs of a government unsure of the disease's legitimacy and at odds with local doctors. Punishment for offenders is a priority for the authorities leaving women solely responsible for their safety.

Some critics have called the condom 'medieval' but supporters feel that a draconic measure is just what is needed when men are stuck with a Stone Age mentality.

Ms. Ehlers remembered a conversation she had with a rape victim who said she wished she had teeth in her genitals. The young woman's lament is common among several women around the world who contemplate unwanted sex acts forced on them. But most women and girls will not have to face the vicious one in five chance of being sexually assaulted in their communities with little or no help.

The critics pine about the condom turning on its user by angering a rapist into a more violent act or using something other than his body to commit the crime. Rapex is not the only attempt made at dealing with rape in an area considered the rape capital of the world. A company named LifeSense has a rape care policy for victims to receive counseling, security reinforcements for the home, free HIV testing for a year, the morning after pill and a triple cocktail of anti-retroviral drugs for 28 days. Policy dissenters feel that insurance programs are superficial solutions that distract the blame from the government, who should aggressively work to extract the problem from society.

Ms. Ehlers' agrees that government incompetence is why she made Rapex. "Nothing has ever been done to help a woman so that she does not get raped and I thought it was about time." Others have taken on the cause such as Hollywood actress Charlize Theron who is a native of the African country. Nine years ago she started an anti-rape campaign that ended-up getting her branded a rape victim instead of encouraging others to contribute in some way to the cause.

Gang-rape or "jackrolling" as some young men called it can occur as a way for them to vent frustration, destroy boredom or to express spite towards women who have rejected their advances. Ehlers anti-rape condom may or may not curb rape in South Africa but the invention draws significant attention to a serious problem.