South African legislators blamed the apparent increase...

South African legislators blamed the apparent increase in child rape and sex abuse on a belief perpetuated by some traditional healers that having sex with a virgin cures AIDS.
In a debate triggered by the gang rape this month of a nine-month-old baby girl - allegedly raped by six men including her grandfather, Deputy President Jacob Zuma announced plans for a moral summit early in 2002 aimed at reviving national morality.
Opposition Democratic Alliance speakers said the incidence of reported rape had risen by more than 20 percent since 1994 to 51,200 in 2000. Citing official statistics, they said 21,438 cases of rape or attempted rape of children were reported in 2000, but only 1,797 cases resulted in convictions.
"The true measure of the moral values of a society is how it treats its children. We fail miserably," Democratic Alliance legislator Paul Swart said.
While some opposition speakers called for a return to capital punishment, which was outlawed when the ANC ousted South Africa's white-minority government in 1994, Zuma said the answer lay in a programme to revive social values.