Every week, there are horrible crimes including murder, rape, assault and harassment that are reported all over South Africa.
This week, a shooting in Rosettenville on Monday left at least nine men dead and many injured. In the same incident, 10 robbers were arrested. The group was allegedly about to rob a cash in transit heist van.
That same day, Mzwandile Somyala appeared briefly in the East London's magistrate's court. He is facing two charges of murder after he handed himself in to the police. He allegedly murdered his ex-girlfriend Zikhona Mahlathi, 33 and her boyfriend Solomon Somnono, 35.
She had a protection order against him.
And these were not part of the statistics that were recently released by the police minister Bheki Cele. The statistics were shocking but sadly not a true reflection of reality because many cases unreported, People Opposing Women Abuse.
Last week, police minister Bheki Cele released the crime statistics for the period between October and December 21 and things are looking grim for women. In that period, the stats reveal that 902 women were murdered and there were 11 315 rapes reported.
POWA has come out saying they are disturbed by the stats as they illustrate the high levels of violence in communities across South Africa.
POWA’s Thandiwe McCloy says there is a serious gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) problem and there is still a long way to go in addressing it
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“It is difficult to believe that these are the only people that were raped and murdered within this reporting period due to the extremely high rates of GBVF in our country and because some crimes are not reported. Police information management systems also need to be improved to capture the accurate number of murders, domestic violence and sexual violence statistics,” she says.
They are also calling on families and community members to report cases of GBVF.
“Communities and families of perpetrators need to report perpetrators to the police – rather than hide and protect them – so they are punished and don’t go on to hurt other women and girls and to send out the message that GBV is a serious crime with serious consequences.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa recently approved amendments to the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill, the Criminal and Related Matters Amendment Bill and the Domestic Violence Amendment Bill.
The laws, among a variety of issues, expand the scope of the National Register for Sex Offenders (NRSO) to include the particulars of all sex offenders and not only sex offenders against children and people who are mentally disabled. They also increase the time that a sex offender’s particulars must remain on the NRSO before they can be removed from the register.
The legislation expands the ambit of the crime of incest and introduces a new offence of sexual intimidation. In addition, it tightens bail and minimum sentencing provisions in the context of GBV and further regulates the right of a complainant in a domestic-related offence to participate in parole proceedings.
Thandiwe says while a lot has been done and they recognize it, more needs to be done by the police and government to deal with reported incidents of rape and murder of women.
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“There needs to be proper training of police in dealing with GBVF to ensure they are able to write proper statements and do thorough investigations. The South African Police Service (SAPS) also needs to rehabilitate police officers who abuse women. If policemen are abusive themselves and adequate measures aren’t taken to rehabilitate them or get them out of the policing system, it will be difficult for them to adequately deal with cases of GBVF which will perpetuate the scourge of women abuse."
Thandiwe adds that the authorities also need to have the capacity to deal with GBVF, both from the police as the prosecution.
“We also need to ensure that the criminal justice system provides adequate feedback on the progress of cases, that it carries out proper investigations and that there is no delay on arrest of perpetrators, etc. so that perpetrators of GBV don’t feel free to carry out their crimes because they believe they will get away with them. The criminal justice system regularly fails GBV survivors and cases often take long to finalise due to the DNA backlog, which causes more trauma for survivors. Cases are sometimes scratched off the roll because of lack of evidence due to lack of proper investigations which means survivors don’t receive the justice they deserve.”
