Women the prime victims of violence, Stats SA figures show
SA women are the face of the country’s rising crime scourge.
Women heading households are the most likely to have their homes attacked and destroyed.
Stats SA, in releasing its latest “Victims of Crime Survey” in Pretoria on Thursday, revealed a country with a population increasingly afraid of crime.
The statistics confirm the fear raised in the past few weeks by gender activists and women’s groups in nationwide protests against gender-based violence and abuse inflicted on women.
In the survey, members of 30,000 households around the country were questioned about their experiences and perceptions of crime.
About 70% of the people surveyed live in formal housing.
In releasing the findings, statistician-general Risenga Maluleke, said the figures show that there has not been a significant decrease in sexual assaults, and that urban households headed by women were more likely to be attacked. About 43% of the women surveyed reported that they felt unsafe.
Of the people whose homes were attacked, 35,414 were headed by women, compared with 34,481 men who had their homes damaged.
The vast majority of women feel unsafe walking alone at night in their neighbourhoods compared with men.
The survey, said Maluleke, shows that there are “dramatic and significant increases” in many types of violent crime, especially murder and assault, “which are in line with police crime statistics”.
Maluleke said that the survey examined issues such as people s perceptions on issues of safety and what households did to protect themselves, with those questioned asked about their experience of crimes affecting households and individuals.
People were asked if their vehicles had been stolen, hijacked or broken into; whether their homes had been burgled, robbed, damaged or destroyed; if they had been physically or sexually assaulted; or whether their loved ones and friends had been murdered.
Guns and knives were the weapons used most commonly in house robberies. The figures show that major increases were recorded in the destruction of homes, murders, hijackings, street robberies and theft of personal belongings.
The latest police crime stats, which were released in September, show that murders rose from 20,336 in the 2017/2018 financial year to 21,022 in the 2018/2019 period, with 41,583 rapes recorded among the 52,420 reported sexual offences, and 220,865 house burglaries recorded.
VAST MAJORITY OF WOMEN FEEL UNSAFE WALKING ALONE AT NIGHT IN THEIR NEIGHBOURHOODS