A basket of crimes ranging from prostitution to sexual acts with a corpse make up the police's annual statistics for sexual offences. Hidden among the 53,617 cases included in this broad range of crimes is the fact that nearly 80% of them were rapes - a staggering 43,195. This means that South Africa recorded an average of 118 rapes a day.The Sunday Times has seen raw data, attached to the police statistics but not publicly available, from each of the country's 1,141 police stations.They reveal that:• The Eastern Cape recorded the highest number of rapes, 7934; followed by Gauteng, 7916; and KwaZulu-Natal, 7,427.• The Western Cape had 4,951 while the North West, Limpopo, Free State and Mpumalanga had between 3000 and 3,771; and• The Northern Cape, with a significantly smaller population, recorded 1181 rapes.Rape is one of at least 54 categories of sexual crimes recorded in the annual crime statistics, released by police on Tuesday.story_article_left1Experts have for years complained that one of the most common crimes in South Africa is not being isolated so that the police can note trends and get a grip on the scourge.Police last reported rape as a crime on its own in 2008."How could we possibly start fixing the problems in our communities if we don't know what they are?" asked Alison Botha, a rape survivor whose case made international headlines in 1994 after her attackers stabbed her 37 times, slit her throat and left her for dead."As a society we must always demand to know more. As a victim of sexual assault I had no clue about the court processes. And it starts with having the right information, like stats," Botha said on Friday.The official statistics show that sexual offences were down by 3,000 from the previous year, while rape, according to the raw data, dropped by 2154.On Tuesday, the national police commissioner, General Riah Phiyega, announced the 5.4% decrease in sexual offences. The same day, the Institute for Security Studies, which monitors crime statistics, tweeted that only one in 13 rape cases are actually reported.Phiyega said: ''I can safely say we have a good story to tell as various efforts that we make towards reducing these crimes are beginning to pay dividends."But leading gender violence researcher Lisa Vetten said that it was ''highly unlikely" that rape had gone down. "Rape is very significantly under-reported. It makes you wonder what the police are measuring. Is there a decrease in the reporting or a decrease in the actual incidence of rape?"Several experts agreed that by clustering more than 50 types of sexual crimes into a single category of sexual offences, police are missing the opportunity to pick up important trends to help turn the tide or to identify problem areas.The following are the five police stations with the highest number of rapes reported:• Umlazi in KwaZulu-Natal, which showed an increase from 298 the previous year to 305;• Inanda in KwaZulu-Natal, where rapes decreased from 297 to 274;• Thohoyandou in Limpopo, where rapes increased from 246 to 269;• Jouberton in the North West, where rapes decreased from 291 to 248; and• Bloemspruit in the Free State, with a decrease from 286 to 243 cases.Mthatha police station in the Eastern Cape recorded a spike in rapes from 46 to 222; Ivory Park, east of Johannesburg, recorded 205 from 150; but Joza, near Grahamstown, recorded the biggest increase: to 122 from seven .Fewer rapes were reported at the Ngangelizwe police station near Mthatha, where the figure dropped from 250 to 68; Madeira, also near Mthatha, dropped from 119 to 56, and Grahamstown police station fell from 163 to 59.Mitchells Plain, in the Western Cape, saw a decrease of 169 to 115, and Diepsloot in Gauteng went from 163 cases to 115.Police spokesman Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said reducing the incidence of rape was a high priority for the police. ''And reporting has increased over the years but we still need all cases to be reported. This serves as a deterrent to perpetrators, that victims will not be scared off."Carol Bouwer, an independent children's rights consultant, said good statistics were crucial in order to provide proper services for rape victims.full_story_image_hleft1"Our problem in South Africa is not that we have high levels of rape - of course that is an extremely big problem - but the bigger problem is that we don't know the extent of it because we don't have accurate reporting rates. Depending on who you talk to, anything between one in nine and one in 36 women [who are raped report it]," said Bouwer.One of the problems with rape statistics was the pressure on police to report to parliament that crime had gone down. "In particular for violent crimes like murder, rape and sexual assault," said Bouwer. "They want to show they are going down, which supposedly means they are doing their job."What we do know is that the problem is huge and that the stats don't reflect it."Kathleen Dey, the director of Rape Crisis in Cape Town, said a survey in Athlone, on the Cape Flats, found that people felt that rape was still a huge problem but that victims were more afraid than ever to come forward. One of the reasons, Dey said, was that the perpetrator was a gangster or someone who lived nearby.In the past year, Rape Crisis helped between 400 and 450 survivors through its counselling services, 2800 at health facilities where it has volunteers 24 hours a day, and 1300 at court."And of the ones that come to our counselling services, about 50% report it to the criminal justice system. So you could say the crime stats are only half the picture," Dey said.sub_head_start Provincial rape statistics sub_head_endWESTERN CAPENyanga: 202Khayelitsha: 186Delft: 174Harare: 174Mitchells Plain: 115Athlone: 39Claremont: 6Sea Point: 8Rondebosch: 3story_article_right2GAUTENGIvory Park on the East Rand: 205Alexandra: 184Temba: 182Kagiso on the West Rand: 171Roodepoort: 144Dobsonville: 156Linden: 15Sandton: 35Parkview: 6Fairland: 3Rosebank: 6KWAZULU-NATALUmlazi: 305Inanda: 274Durban Central: 60Pietermaritzburg: 54Durban North: 5Hillcrest: 52Nkandla: 44NORTH WESTJouberton: 248Mmabatho: 179Boitekong: 151LIMPOPOThohoyandou: 269Mankweng: 207Seshego: 174story_article_right3EASTERN CAPEMthatha: 222Ngqeleni: 201Kwazakhele: 194NORTHERN CAPEGaleshewe: 80Kimberley: 69Kagisho: 60FREE STATEBloemspruit: 243Thabong: 227Boithuso: 124MPUMALANGATonga: 168Calcutta: 148Masoyi: 138Top 50 stations with the most number of rape cases.- Source: Police crime statistics based on reports to individual police stationslaganparsadm@sundaytimes.co.za, bornmanj@sundaytimes.co.za, davidsn@sundaytimes.co.za..