Johannesburg — A WOMAN is raped every 10 minutes in South Africa, one is beaten up every six minutes - and seven women are murdered, on average, every day.

This harrowing picture of widespread brutality against women and young girls emerged from the police annual crime statistics released this week.

And police say the truth is even more shocking as two-thirds of all rapes may not be reported because "victims often depend on the perpetrators for a livelihood".

The SA Police Service's annual report for 2004/2005 says that "the details of the crimes are of such an intimate and traumatic nature that the women and, especially, children involved will not easily share these with anybody".

The police figures show that rape increased nationally by 4% between April 2004 and March 2005. Countrywide, 55 114 cases were reported. Sixty percent of the victims were adult women, and 40% children.

The province with the highest number of reported cases is Gauteng (11 923), followed by KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

The policing area which recorded the highest number of rape cases - 2 546 in the past year - is Marico in North West.

Director Lucas Breedt, the acting area commissioner of Marico, said rape had remained "unacceptably high" since 2001. He said the highest number of cases reported were in the towns of Themba, Phokeng and Rustenburg.

The Pretoria policing area recorded the second highest number of rape cases - 2 399. Sunny side, Mamelodi, Soshanguve and Atteridgeville were the worst zones.

"Victims are attacked on the streets or secluded places when walking home from places of entertainment where alcohol is served," said Pretoria area communications head Captain Piletji Sebola.

"This place has become hell," said Steven Nkhasi, a volunteer at the Itumeleng Shelter in Sunnyside. He said the area had become a cesspool of rape and murder.

The East Metropole area of the Western Cape recorded the third-highest number of rape cases in the country. More than 2 158 women and children were raped in the area, which includes Khayelitsha and Bellville.

"In the majority of the incidents victims were under the age of 16 years and were usually under the influence of liquor... Some of the victims who were raped were women who were walking alone at night after visiting clubs or shebeens," said documents presented by police at an anti-rape forum in Cape Town earlier this month.

The comment has been slammed by Carrie Shelver of People Opposing Women Abuse: " A comment like this takes away the blame from the perpetrator and places it with the victim."

Other crimes reported reveal a violent onslaught against women and children. Indecent assault rose 8%. Of the 10 123 cases opened nationally, 38.6% of the victims were women and 47.7% children.

Adult women were also victims of 13.9% of all murders, 52.6% of all common assaults and 39.7% of all assaults with the intention to do grievous bodily harm.

Samantha Waterhouse, the advocacy co-ordinator for Rape Crisis, said crime denied women their constitutional rights to safety, freedom of movement, dignity and respect. She attributed the high prevalence of rape to the belief that men were entitled to a woman's sexuality.

"Rape is an act of gaining ownership of control over another person, although you can't take the sexual element out of it."

Waterhouse said research showed perpetrators also used rape as a form of punishment.

So what needs to be done?

"This is a South African issue and not a women's issue. Men need to be good role models. What sort of example is a sports star who says he had sex with a 15-year-old thinking she was 17, when he shouldn't have been there in the first place?" she said.

Anton du Plessis, who heads the Institute for Security Studies' Crime and Justice Programme, said the establishment of new police units and courts dealing with sexual offences had to be fast-tracked - and there needed to be greater involvement from civil society and other state institutions.

"We need to prioritise these crimes more. And we need to ask why this is happening," he said.