Minister of Police Bheki Cele said the Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offences (FCS) had 185 units to deal with gender-based violence including sexual offences.
According to Cele, in the past financial year of 2018/2019, the FCS recorded 658 life sentences out of 504 registered sexual offence cases. It was through highly specialised investigative work that 387 suspects were sentenced to 20 years and above.
“Plans to increase the number of FCS units countrywide and to recruit and train more women officers to work within this specialised environment are underway. To further fight the scourge of violence against women, we have heeded President Ramaphosa’s call to reopen the investigation of all cold cases of gender-based crimes in the country,” said Cele.
He added that the National Stability Intervention plan which includes Crime Intelligence, Special Task Force, National Intervention Unit and Tactical Response Teams for quick mobilisation has also gone a long way in tackling trio crimes. “We believe that the rebuilding of crime intelligence, Hawks and better working relationships with the State Security Agency, National Prosecution Authority, Department of Justice and the Department of Defence will continue to produce favourable results.”
Anti-crime activist, Yusuf Abramjee said, “We have a national crisis, life has become too cheap in our country… some 144 sexual offences and rape cases are reported in South Africa every day, this amounts to an average of six incidents every hour or one case every 10 minutes.”
He added that the public had lost confidence in the justice system which was why some cases remained unreported. “Poor investigations and poor service delivery are real problems.”
Below is an overview of the crime stats in Gauteng,
- Murder 3.4 per cent
- Sexual Offences 4.6 per cent
- Attempted Murder 4.1 per cent
- Assault to cause grievous bodily harm 2.2 per cent
- Common Assault 3.7 per cent
- Common Robbery 2.0 per cent
- Robbery with aggravating circumstances 1.2 per cent
Related article:
https://northeasterntribune.co.za/236324/city-joburg-announces-may-crime-stats/
