The practice is to keep women hostages in fear: Fear of more violence at the work place, in the home, and in the community. The male farm worker becomes yet another level of management and social control. If a woman complains of violence, whether perpetrated by the farm owner or foreman, or by a male farm worker, the idea is to keep her silent about the violence. ⁽³¹³⁾
 

Scope of the Problem 

Placed low in the farming community hierarchy, black women living on farms are subjected to sexual and physical violence by farm owners, managers, other farmworkers, and from within their own families, from husbands and intimate partners. ⁽³¹⁴⁾ As with assaults on farm residents generally, it is difficult to establish the extent of sexual violence, given that many cases of rape and other physical violence go unreported. ⁽³¹⁵⁾

Women farmworkers or residents who are raped by other farmworkers face a different situation from those who are raped by their supervisors or farm owners. In both situations, however, to speak about the rape would be to risk serious retaliation, and many women will not speak about the rapes while they are still working on farms. Women are prevented from reporting rape or sexual violence against them by dependency on the perpetrator or fear of being evicted from the farm, fear of rejection and ostracization by their families and society, by the belief that the police may not be receptive to their complaints, and other reasons. On one hand, women who report rape perpetrated by other farmworkers may be assaulted again by their assailants or be blamed for the rape by their families, community, and even law enforcement officers. On the other hand, those who report cases of rape by their employers or supervisors face possible violent retaliation, dismissal from employment, or eviction from the farm. ⁽³¹⁶⁾

Levels of domestic violence are also reported to be high on many farms, though again the extent of the problem cannot be accurately gauged because many cases are unreported. ⁽³¹⁷⁾ According to researchers in the Western Cape, women are most often targets of domestic violence because of their unequal status to men within the farming community. The stereotypical attitudes held by some farm owners as well as male farm workers, that farm labor is predominantly a masculine domain, often results in the legitimization of women's economic dependence on men. The fact that a woman who is employed on a temporary basis only has access to continuous income through a male relative's or a husband's wages, further entrenches male dominance over women and leaves women vulnerable to violence. ⁽³¹⁸⁾ Although this was not the focus of our research, Human Rights Watch documented a few cases of domestic violence on farms, including one fatal case. ⁽³¹⁹⁾ We also interviewed officers of the Women on Farms Project, a South Africa-based nongovernmental organization conducting a project to address domestic violence on farms in the Western Cape, and received reports that perpetrators of domestic violence on farms are seldom made accountable. ⁽³²⁰⁾ A fieldworker coordinator with the Women on Farms Project told Human Rights Watch, "A lot needs to be done to pierce through the fence of the farms and empower women to use the law. Despite the existence of a law punishing domestic violence, women are not familiar with it and are too intimidated by their husbands and farm owners to report cases." ⁽³²¹⁾
 

Rape and Assault by Farm Owners and Supervisors 

Human Rights Watch documented cases of rape of women farmworkers or residents by farm owners or supervisors. Our research cannot indicate the true scale of the problem, but does indicate the need for more in-depth investigation of this issue. While farm residents will, if they believe the information to be given in confidence, talk readily about general physical assaults, it is much more difficult for women to speak out about sexual abuse. The following cases are illustrative. 

In April 2000, Human Rights Watch visited the housing compound for workers on a vegetable farm near Tarlton on the West Rand. This farm grows produce for the Johannesburg market. Most of the workers on the farm were women, and virtually all had tales of abuse by the farm owner. In some cases, this abuse was more serious, involving sexual harassment and in at least one case, rape. Dipo Masotsha, ⁽³²²⁾ a sixteen-year-old girl living on the same farm since she was ten years old, described to Human Rights Watch how the farm owner repeatedly attempted to rape her: 
 

[The farm owner] sends his foreman to tell me to come and work, but when I get there he says he doesn't want to work with a prostitute. He is hitting everybody. He is sleeping with people here. Once when I was working here he took me from this side of the farm to the other side and tried to have sex with me, but then other people came and so he couldn't. He used to try often to have sex with me. Even when he pays us sometimes he gives a lot of money to one woman and when people want to know why he says she is good. He tries to have sex with anybody, even with my [younger] sister. If somebody comes to ask a question he hits them. There is a rumor that people have become pregnant. He kicked one who was pregnant and the rumor was that it was his baby. She went home to Pietersburg to have the baby. ⁽³²³⁾
 

Dipo told Human Rights Watch that on at least one occasion the farm owner had succeeded in raping her. Human Rights Watch also visited several farms in Northern Province and spoke to dozens of male and female farmworkers there. At one farm near the town of Messina, Human Rights Watch spoke to Hilda Rutenga, a farmworker, who told us that Mr. Wilbert, the owner of the farm, raped his domestic worker and impregnated her. "When his wife left for work, Mr. Wilbert remained, raping Elizabeth Mate, his domestic worker. After his wife found about the rape and pregnancy, she fired Mate from her job," said Hilda Rutenga. ⁽³²⁴⁾ Mate gave birth to a baby girl. In April 2000, she was still living at the farm with the child, now aged between four to six years old. She did not report the case to police. 

In September 2000, Human Rights Watch visited farms in the Piketberg area of the Western Cape. Human Rights Watch learned about the case of Lucy Fernson, a woman farmworker who alleged that she was raped by the owner of the farm on which she lived. She visited the Piketberg advice office to seek help: 
 

Lucy came to our office in March 1999 to report a case of rape. She was thirty-one years old when I interviewed her. Unfortunately, she refused to disclose the name of the farm owner who had raped her because she was afraid of possible retaliation. Lucy told me that on several occasions the farm owner raped her in his house. Sometimes the farm owner raped Lucy in the field when his wife was present in the house. Lucy did not want to work on the farm anymore. She used to work in the kitchen as a domestic worker. She was four months pregnant as a result of the rape when I interviewed her. She wanted assistance with how to obtain social welfare funds once she delivered her baby. She refused to report the case to police because she was afraid of the farm owner. She did not revisit our office [the advice office] since I spoke to her in March 1999. I do not know what finally happened to her and I still do not know who raped her. She refused to disclose the name of the farm owner. She was in a very terrible state when I spoke to her. ⁽³²⁵⁾
 

In the Free State, young woman of eighteen reported to researchers how a supervisor had sexually assaulted her, but that she was fearful of reporting it: 
 

I went out and never went to his office again. I did not tell anybody except one of my friends at home. I felt like telling the farmer, but I was afraid that the same thing would happen or I would get fired. Since it happened to me secretly, I think it happens to others, but they are afraid to say anything. ⁽³²⁶⁾
 

In another case, a young woman about twenty years old who lived and worked at a vegetable farm near Tarlton, on the West Rand in Gauteng, told Human Rights Watch how she was threatened and physically assaulted by the farm owner: 
 

One day last August at 6:30 in the evening I came home and that man [the farm owner] came here. He doesn't knock, he just kicks the door down, and found me undressing. He took me out of the bedroom to the kitchen and laid me down on the floor and stood over me and hit me with his fist on my chest and threatened to have sex with me. I went to the Tarlton police station the next day and reported a case of assault. ⁽³²⁷⁾ I went to see the doctor after the police gave me a form to take to the doctor. The police recorded a statement from me and said they would come and see the farm owner. They have not come here to talk to other people who witnessed the incident. The case occurred at night and I was alone but there were others when I was running away after he hit me, so there were witnesses. I don't live here any more, I came only to see my mother. ⁽³²⁸⁾
 

Rape by Other Farm Residents 

Women farm residents are also raped and sexually assaulted by other farmworkers. Women farmworkers may be more likely to speak about the rapes perpetrated by other farmworkers (except marital rape), ⁽³²⁹⁾ than rapes perpetrated by farm owners and managers. Nonetheless, there are no statistics of rape of women farm residents in either circumstance, since police do not break down reported rapes by place of residence. Women and girls are raped by men well known to them, such as neighbors, husbands, or work mates.The poor housing conditions prevalent on farms, including hostels or compounds in which single migrant workers, men and women, are housed in close proximity, and where there is poor security, increase the likelihood of such violent interactions. ⁽³³⁰⁾

In many cases, known perpetrators are left unpunished for their actions. Farm owners often distance themselves from violence involving farmworkers against each other. In the context of the quite closed community of the farm, where farm residents are unlikely to have their own transport or phone connections, this may mean that no outside assistance is available to farmworkers. In many cases, farm owners consider violence among those working or resident on their farms as "none of their business," and may trivialize its consequences on women. ⁽³³¹⁾ For example, the Centre for Rural Legal Studies, a research and advocacy group working on labor rights for farmworkers, encountered a farm owner and his wife who made a joke out of a case of rape of a woman farmworker that occurred at their farm in the Karoo region of the Western Cape in 1999. In this case, the victim allegedly owed rent to her assailant and she had failed to make payment of the rent on the due date. The assailant then went to her house and raped her. After raping her, the assailant told the farm owner that he "just collected the 'rent' she owed him," meaning that raping the woman was equivalent to obtaining the rent she owed. ⁽³³²⁾ The farm owner had made no effort to tell the woman of her rights to report the matter to the police, or encouraged her to seek other assistance. In another case, a group of women reported to researchers that men had been threatening them with sexual assault for several nights at their hostel, and had broken windows. Although they had complained to the farm owner, no action had been taken. ⁽³³³⁾ The same researchers found that cases of rape and sexual harassment among migrant farmworkers were left for supervisors to handle, often permanent male employees. ⁽³³⁴⁾

Thirteen-year-old Kasy Mwale was raped by a man she identified as an employee of Thomson farm near New Hanover, KwaZulu-Natal. When Human Rights Watch interviewed her, Mwale stayed with her mother on a farm where her mother worked as a domestic worker. Mwale was a student at New Hanover Primary School. She encountered the rapist while on her way to the farm store: 
 

I knew the man who raped me before the rape occurred. He works at Thomson farm. He is married and has four children. Two of his children go to the same school with me. On March 29, this man followed me while I was on my way to the store. He dragged me into a bush and raped me. He beat me on the face and head while he was raping me. He threatened to kill me if I told anyone about the incident. When he left me, I went back home and told my mother about the rape. My mother reported to the police. The rapist was arrested on the same day. Police also took me to the doctor on the same day. I was examined by the doctor who wrote the results and gave them to the police. The doctor also gave me an injection. The police, however, released the rapist after he denied having raped me. ⁽³³⁵⁾
 

When interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Mwale complained that she still suffered from vaginal pain and had difficulty walking because of it. 

Human Rights Watch met with a group of children who are now housed at the Sithabile Child and Youth Care Centre, a shelter project for child survivors of abuse from the farms in the East Rand in Gauteng. ⁽³³⁶⁾ Many of these children came from the East Rand farms where they experienced abuse, including sexual violence by farmworkers. Most of the children complained to Human Rights Watch about their parents' neglect of them. Many of them had been used as child labor on the farms, daily loading vegetables and other produce on tractors and trucks. 

Ten-year-old Moretse Mhlothi was one of the children who had been sexually assaulted by more than one male farmworker at a farm where her parents worked. Mhlothi told Human Rights Watch that "rape and sexual abuse had become a way of living for many girls on the farms." ⁽³³⁷⁾ She came to the Sithabile Centre in 1996, aged six, after having lived all her life on a farm in the East Rand area: 
 

It was painful staying on the farm. On many occasions when my mother sent me to the shops, I encountered a male farmworker who took me to his house and raped me. Another man, a tractor driver, also used to do the same to me. They were both elderly men. I did not report the case to anybody, because I was afraid of the assailants. ⁽³³⁸⁾
 

Mhlothi came to the Sithabile Centre on her own after she heard about the center from other children on the farms. She did not want to go back and live on the farm with her parents. ⁽³³⁹⁾

A fourteen-year-old girl, who lived with her aunt on a farm in the East Rand told Human Rights Watch about the rape that she suffered: 
 

My aunt used to make me do a lot of work in the house, including going out to fetch firewood in the forest. One day while I was in the forest collecting firewood, I encountered a man who worked on the same farm where we lived. The man beat me and raped me. When I told my aunt's friend about the rape, she in turn went and told the assailant's wife who beat me so badly. I left the farm after my friend told me about Sithabile Centre in 1998. I did not report the case to anybody else except my aunt's friend. ⁽³⁴⁰⁾
 

Sexual Harassment 

Women farmworkers experience sexual harassment from their employers and managers, and from other farmworkers. Sexual harassment happens in the packing rooms, in kitchens, and in the field. Sexual harassment commonly takes the form of persistent requests for sexual favors in exchange for better working conditions, unwanted flirting, sexualized language, and other degrading treatment. ⁽³⁴¹⁾ Victims of sexual harassment in general suffer a number of negative consequences, including poor job performance, persistent absenteeism, victimization by other workers, victimization by employer, guilt, loss of promotion or salary, and resignation or dismissal. 

Human Rights Watch interviewed many women farmworkers who had been victims of sexual harassment from KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape, and Gauteng. Some of the victims told Human Rights Watch about the negative side effects they suffered as a result of the harassment. Some had been assaulted by their employers or managers as punishment for resisting advances. Twenty-year-old Deliwe Hlabathi was sexually harassed by the foreman on several occasions. When interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Hlabathi was a single mother with one child. She was dismissed from her job on a farm in KwaZulu-Natal after she complained about the sexual harassment: 
 

I worked at the farm for ten months, from August 1999 until June 2000. I was employed as a domestic worker, cooking for all the farmworkers. I earned R150 [approximately U.S.$20]. I was not getting any additional benefits. Since my first day of work, the foreman started to propose love to me. He is married with three children, who all live on the farm with him and his wife. I refused his requests, and he started treating me badly. He spoke to me with a harsh voice each time he saw me. In August 1999, the foreman came into the kitchen and hit me hard on the back with a cooking stick while I was working. He accused me for delaying to prepare food for the farmworkers, but I had spent all morning helping others extinguish the fire that broke out on the farm. I went to report him to the farm owner. Surprisingly, the farm owner rebuked me for disrespecting the foreman. The farm owner dismissed me from work on the same day. I reported the case of assault to the police at Redfree. A case of assault was opened and we went to court. The foreman denied that he had beaten me. [The case was dismissed.] The foreman was left unpunished for beating me and for causing me to be dismissed from employment for no reason. Instead, I was punished on top of having gone through all this. ⁽³⁴²⁾
 

Women also complained to Human Rights Watch that they were often subjected to other degrading treatment by farm owners. In some cases farm owners used highly sexualized language when speaking to women. In other cases, farm owners subjected women to humiliating treatment either in the context of pursuing an eviction or in situations where they found the woman trespassing on the farm. For example, thirty-nine-year old Josephine Thenga (her real name), whose case is reported above, was beaten seriously by the farm owner, Roelf Schutte, after he found her fetching firewood on his farm. The farm owner forced Thenga to undress in the presence of men unknown to her, violating her rights to dignity and privacy, before forcing her to lie in a coffin and threatening her with further violence. ⁽³⁴³⁾ Similarly, Azwindini Maggie Randima (her real name), a middle aged woman with three children, whose case was reported above, was arrested by farm security on May 29, 1998, when she awoke one night to go to the toilet in the bush, and kept all day in the open wearing only her underwear. ⁽³⁴⁴⁾