On Women’s Day (9 August 2013) the Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust will launch its Rape Information Portal on Mxit.
It will form part of Mxit’s “MySafety” app, which currently has 164 475 subscribers.

Research conducted by Rape Crisis in 2011 showed that a lack of information and a poor understanding of how the criminal justice system works prevents rape survivors from accessing justice. This portal will vastly improve the accessibility of information about rape to women, particularly in poorer and rural communities.

The app, called RapeCrisis, currently available in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa, distils 30 years of experience working with rape survivors into a simple yet comprehensive information package.

It empowers women with the information they need to navigate the journey towards justice and recovery. This complex process has many steps including disclosure, reporting to police, a forensic examination and medical treatment, police investigation, court proceedings and counselling.

Rape Crisis director Kathleen Dey comments: “Our mission is to act as a bridge between the rape survivor and the criminal justice system. Rape Crisis is committed to offering survivors information that is clear, accurate and accessible.

“The value of the Mxit mobile social network is that it is an inexpensive, easily accessible tool with enormous reach as it can work on nearly any phone. Women in poor and rural communities might not otherwise have had access to this vital information.”

Andrew Rudge, head of Mxit Reach, says: “The MySafety app was created earlier this year in response to the Anene Booysen tragedy. Including the information from Rape Crisis increases the value of this app immeasurably as a tool to inform and empower our users.”

Users can access the app by typing mxitapp.com/rapecrisis into a phone’s browser.