South Africa Watch: The Rape Trap

South African inventor Sonette Ehlers and her new anti-rape female condom.

The Los Angeles Times has A New Strategy to Fight Rapists.

A medieval device built on hatred of men? Or a cheap, easy-to-use invention that could free millions of South African women from fear of rape, in a country with the worst sexual assault record on Earth?

Dubbed the “rape trap,” trademarked Rapex, the condom-like device bristling with internal hooks designed to snare rapists has reignited controversy over the nation’s alarming rape rate.

Some say the inventor, Sonette Ehlers, deserves a medal; others, that she needs help.

The device, which is worn inside a woman’s body, hooks onto a rapist during penetration. It must be surgically removed.

Ehlers, a former medical technician, said the rape trap would be so painful for a rapist that it would disable him immediately, enabling his victim to escape. She insisted it would cause no long-term physical damage to the assailant, and could not accidentally injure the woman.

Some women’s activists call the device regressive, putting the onus on individual women to address a societal, male problem. Even Charlene Smith, an outspoken journalist and anti-rape campaigner, said the device “goes back to the concept of chastity belts” and predicted it would incite injured rapists to kill their victims.

“You will get a higher rate of women being killed,” Smith said. “We don’t need these nut-case devices by people hoping to make a lot of money out of other women’s fear.”

Yup……

Ehlers said she was inspired to design the device after meeting a young rape victim in a hospital in 1969, who told her, “If only I had teeth down there.”

A moronic device.

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