South African lawmakers has passed amended legislation to broaden the definition of rape in a country saddled with one of the world's highest sex crimes and HIV/ AIDS rates.

The sexual offences amendment bill, in the making for over a decade, defines forced anal or oral sex as rape, irrespective of the victim or perpetrator's gender.

The new legislation also recognises male rape, which was hitherto classified as indecent assault, and widens rape to include sexual penetration with an inanimate object or animal genitalia.

"The objects of the bill (include) creating offences which are intended to address the relatively high incidence of sexual offences committed in the republic," an explanatory memorandum said.

The bill allows rape victims to obtain a court order for alleged offenders to undergo compulsory HIV testing and for the results to be revealed to them.

It also entitles victims to be provided with post-exposure anti-AIDS drugs at state expense.

"This bill is about trying to extend, to the best of our ability, protection and treatment provision for victims of rape," parliament's justice committee chairwoman Fatima Chohan-Kota told MPs in the National Assembly.
"This legislation will fully deal with all the issues pertaining to the modernisation of the definition of rape," she said.

The bill also provides for the creation of a register of people convicted of sexual offences against children and the mentally handicapped to ensure they were not employed to work with these vulnerable groups or adopt children.

The amended law was supported by all political parties in the National Assembly and unanimously passed.
About 55,000 rapes and just under 10,000 cases of indecent assault were reported to South African police in the 2005/06 financial year.

Nearly half of rape victims in the country are believed to be children.

About 5.5 million of the country's 47 million people are believed to be infected with the HIV virus that can lead to AIDS.

"This bill will go a long way in clarifying and updating the law, establishing preventative mechanisms such as a register for sexual offenders which is specifically aimed at paedophiles who lure our children into the most obscene activities," said Chohan-Kota.

An explanatory memorandum to the bill said its objectives included creating new offences "intended to address the relatively high incidence of sexual offences committed in the republic."

A new crime created by the legislation was that of "compelled rape" under which any person forcing someone to rape a third person can be convicted as a perpetrator and not as a mere accomplice to rape.
It also criminalises forcing a person to watch a rape -- an occurence that can accompany house robberies in the country.

The bill also places an obligation on people to report the sexual abuse of a child or mentally disabled person, with failure to do so amounting to a crime.

The opposition Democratic Alliance's justice spokeswoman Sheila Camerer said: "We can be thankful that this bill is at last on the road again and will hopefully be signed into law in the not too distant future."

The legislation is to be sent to parliament's second chamber, the National Council of Provinces, for concurrence before being signed into law by President Thabo Mbeki.