JOHANNESBURG, Oct 14 (AFP) - A South African insurance company launched Wednesday a policy offering rape victims limited medical and psychological treatment but was immediately accused of trying to make profits out of one of the country's biggest problems.

South Africa has one of the highest incidences of rape in the world.

The policy, launched by CGU Insurance, costs 25 rand (4.3 dollars) a month and provides for psychological treatment worth 5,000 rand (833 dollars) and medical treatment, including anti-AIDS drugs, to the same amount.

The company's chief executive officer Roger Wanless told SABC public television the "Rape Survivor" package was intended to be a "compassionate response to a traumatic problem."

The non-governmental organisation Rape Crisis estimates that more than a million women are raped annually and one in three women will be raped at least once in their lifetime.

But anti-rape lobby groups immediately took up position against the policy, saying it sought to feed off affluent women's fears, but left the majority of the country's rape victims -- the poor -- out in the cold, The Star newspaper reported Thursday.

"It is an opportunistic money-making scheme," Rape Crisis Director Carol Bower told the paper.

Marion Stevens, the co-director of the Women's Health Project, agreed.

"They are capitalising on people's fears. It is sad that rape has become so much the norm that the response is an insurance policy."

Lisa Vetten from the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation said it was worrying that rape had become "a growth industry."

She said the policy would deepen the divide between South Africa's rich and poor as it gave those who could afford it, access to anti-retroviral drugs which were not available in state hospitals.

"The state should really be providing AZT to rape survivors, but what you are seeing now is inequality being further entrenched."

CGU has acknowledged that many people could not afford to pay the premiums and that rape statistics were higher in poor areas.

The policy has been launched at a time when several controversies are raging over the responses of civil society, government and the judiciary to rape.

The state is under fire for refusing to distribute AZT to rape victims in state hospitals to limit their chances of contracting HIV, while a judge is expected to be called before parliament to explain imposing a lenient prison sentence on a man who raped his own daughter.

Last week, the country's advertising authority banned an anti-rape television advertisment because it implied that the majority of South African men were either guilty of rape or doing nothing to stop it.

The ruling is being contested.

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