Foreign Policy Blogs

Testing rape-preventing condoms in South Africa

Last year, in June, a study was released in South Africa which found that more than one in four men in South Africa admitted to raping a woman.  During the World Cup, 30,000 women have been given condoms, or tampon-like devices, which have “teeth”, or hooks inside that attach to a man’s penis during penetration.  Once it lodges, only a doctor can remove it.  The device was developed by a South African doctor, Dr. Sonnet Ehlers, who has sold her house and car to pursue the project.  The device has been controversial, deemed “medieval” by some.

 

Author

Cynthia Schweer Rayner

Cynthia Schweer Rayner is an independent consultant and philanthropy advisor specializing in public health, social entrepreneurship and scalable business models for positive social change. As a recovering management consultant, she spent several months living in South Africa, and later co-founded the US branch of an organization providing support to orphaned and vulnerable children. In 2009, she was an LGT Venture Philanthropy Fellow, working with mothers2mothers (m2m), a multinational non-profit organization employing mothers living with HIV as peer educators to positive pregnant women. She currently works with individuals, companies and nonprofits to finance and develop models for positive change. Cynthia has an MBA from INSEAD and a BA in English Literature from Georgetown University. She currently lives in Cape Town and visits New York frequently, where she co-owns a Manhattan-based yoga studio, mang'Oh yoga (www.mangohstudio.com).