The case touched a raw nerve in a country where an average of 181 people a day are raped or sexually assaulted.
The accused range
in age from 14 to 20 and are suspected of holding the girl as a sex
slave in a Soweto township residence, filming the rapes with a mobile phone and offering her coins to keep quiet.
The 17-year-old
girl, who went missing a few weeks ago, was found by police on Wednesday
in the home of a 37-year-old man, who has also been arrested. Police
have not revealed the identities of any involved due to the nature of
the crime.
The hearing was postponed and will resume next week, but the case has set off a wave of soul searching.
In a front page editorial, the Star newspaper, one of South Africa's
biggest-circulation dailies, described the incident is "Our Disgrace".
Government spokesman Jimmy Manyi branded it a "barbaric act".
Successive
governments have pledged to cut crime, putting more police on the street
and launching high profile campaigns that have done little to reduce
the violence.
Massive
unemployment, poverty, easy access to weapons and the lingering effects
of the racial oppression of apartheid have been cited by as reasons for
the persistently high levels of violent crime.
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