The horror stories have become platitudes - a nine-month-old baby allegedly gang-raped, a pensioner raped by her grandson - to make the interminable list lend weight to perceptions of South Africa as a world rape capital.
In the Western Cape, police statistics show that rape was the only contact crime category to increase, by 8,2 percent, from 2003/04 to 2004/05.
"The increase in this crime in the west metropole (14,2 percent), Boland (7,3 percent) and Southern Cape (14,3 percent) resulted in the increase in the provincial figure of the crime," says the SAPS's 2004/05 annual report for the Western Cape.
Five police stations in the region - Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Kuils River, Worcester and Gugulethu - handled nearly a fifth of all reported cases.
Against the backdrop of escalating incidents of reported rape, an anti-rape strategy was formulated and recently signed into effect by community safety MEC Leonard Ramatlakane.
"The anti-rape strategy brings NGOs and government departments together.
"It is the first integrated strategy in the country and has been copied by other provinces," said Ramatlakane.
The strategy takes a forward-looking approach to terminology, and rape is defined to include all acts of sexual assault.
It also acknowledges research that reported cases only represent the tip of the iceberg of sexual assault, noting data from the Medical Research Council (MRC) which extrapolates that only one in six people report such crimes to the authorities.
"We have a problem, a serious societal problem. Why must people be raped? Why must women be raped when we live in a normal society that has principles, morals and values?" asked Ramatlakane.
But he demurred in conceding to the one-in-six and other statistical propositions, saying this was not empirically tested.
"Whether it's one or two, it's a problem. But the dramatisation of using numbers, does it help?"
Data from Dr Naeemah Abrahams of the MRC's gender and health research unit showed that in 2003/04 there were more than 50 000 rapes reported to police in South Africa.
This meant about 144 cases a day were reported to police, with the Western Cape consistently exceeding the national average since 1994.
If one were to subscribe to the one-in-six theorem, the actual number of cases would be in the region of 315 000.
Related studies of adolescent sexuality have found that 15 percent to 28 percent of girls reported forced sexual initiation, with an MRC survey in Cape Town finding that 15 percent of men reported having raped or attempted to rape their wife or girlfriend.
Ramatlakane felt campaigns, such as the province breaking the silence initiative, were bearing fruit and that more victims were coming forward.
He suggested a downward trend could be felt as a "bottleneck of cases" was processed.
Asked if the strategy, which envisions the Western Cape as a rape-free society, was aiming too high, Ramatlakane said the strategy was a destination and that society had "a long road to travel".
Samantha Waterhouse, advocacy manager at children's rights organisation Rapcan, said they were happy the strategy was in place.
"What we want to see it achieve primarily is greater co-ordination between government departments and civil society, especially strategic input into departmental projects from civil society."
Waterhouse said in the past many anti-rape activities did not address the causes and consequences of rape, "and now what we want to see is more resources put into those complex factors which lead to rape", said Western Cape Community Safety MEC Leonard Ramatlakane.