The South African media is consistently filled with local stories of crime, violence and injury. Internationally, too, South Africa has an increasingly dubious reputation as a highly dangerous place. But are these images of South Africa supported by objective, systematic evidence? Just how dangerous is our society when compared with other countries? What forms of trauma and violence pose the greatest burden to our society? And is South Africa equally dangerous for everyone?

Certainly, South Africa is one of the few countries in the world that has endured protracted political violence as well as high rates of criminal violence, domestic abuse and accidental injury. This translates into a large number of trauma survivors in our society, with one nationally representative survey reporting that 75 per cent of respondents had experienced a traumatic event in their lifetime and over half had experienced multiple traumas. The same study also established that there are many South Africans who have not experienced a trauma directly, but have been indirectly traumatised through the sudden death of a loved one, hearing about a trauma that occurred to a person they are close to, or witnessing a traumatic incident. It is therefore apparent that very few South Africans live lives completely untouched by trauma and, for many, exposure to potentially traumatic experiences is an inescapable part of daily life.

While no one in South Africa is immune from trauma, some people are more at risk than others of experiencing certain kinds of trauma. Understanding the prevalence of different forms of trauma in the population is an important first step in developing strategies to reduce the burden of trauma in our society. This chapter will review patterns of exposure to the most common forms of violence and accidental injury, as well as indirect and multiple trauma exposure.

Violence

As is the case elsewhere in the world, gender is a strong predictor of whether or not South Africans will be exposed to a particular form of violence. As we shall see, certain types of violence in South Africa are more likely to occur to women and others are more likely to affect men. Beginning in 2002, the South African Stress and Health (SASH) study conducted a survey of trauma exposure in a nationally representative sample of 4,351 South African adults.