Cape crime shock
Women, children are under attack, says minister
AS WOMEN’S Month draws to a close, shocking statistics were released of the number of women and children killed and raped in the province. More than 279 children were murdered, and 2 063 raped in the province in just a year.
Rape figures for adult women (18 and older) for the 2017/18 financial year in the Western Cape topped 3 549, which is down by 5.3% compared to 2016/17 when the figure stood at 3 747.
In the 2017/18 period, 370 women were murdered in the province, while in total, 3 915 women and children were murdered across the country.
These figures were presented by the police’s national top management at a briefing in Parliament yesterday.
Police Minister Bheki Cele admitted women and children were under siege, but reiterated that most offences occur within family-and-friend circles.
“We, as the police management, have accepted that children are really under attack. Women are under attack. There are also times when victims find it difficult to deal with male police officers and that is why we are pushing for more female officers to be at the front desk,” Cele said.
“The biggest problem we have is that perpetrators are in the families. We had a case in Mitchells Plain of Stacey Adams; the boyfriend was responsible for the child’s murder. The child trusted the boyfriend, so how does one police that? There are incidents where the boyfriend kills the girlfriend, but the problem is that we cannot police the lovers; that’s not possible.”
Cele said the police management were working to get more police officers employed.
THE REFURBISHED theatre complex of Stellenbosch University (SU) will be named after award-winning poet and playwright Adam Small. The drama department proposed and motivated the naming. The executive committee of the council recently accepted the name at the recommendation of the rectorate and committee for the naming of buildings, venues and other facilities.
Small’s widow, Dr Rosalie Small, has given her approval.
“Stellenbosch University is grateful and proud to be associated with the rich legacy of Adam Small. We would like to see the vision of human dignity and healing justice to which he as an academic and playwright was committed, realised,” said Professor Wim de Villiers, rector and vice-chancellor.
Professor Nico Koopman, vice-rector: transformation, social impact and personnel, said Small used his academic pursuit and specifically his many works in Afrikaans as instruments of transformation.
“He helped us to move away from apartheid towards a democratic society, and now his legacy helps us to put his democratic vision of human dignity into practice.”
“With this name change, SU wants to pay tribute to an icon. Without denying the past, we are saying that in future we will include, and not the other way round,” says Dr Leslie van Rooi, senior director: social impact and transformation.
“The name change is part of a process of visual redress and representation to make even more people feel at home on our campuses.”
Small was awarded the Hertzog Prize for Drama of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns in 2012 for his entire oeuvre, and specifically for Kanna,
hy kô huistoe (1965). “The name was tabled in initial discussions about a name change at the end of 2017. In 2015, SU awarded Small an honorary doctorate. His commitment to Afrikaans and contribution to specifically Kaaps Afrikaans (Cape Afrikaans) as poet and playwright served as further motivation,” said Dr Mareli Pretorius, chairperson of the drama department.
The large auditorium in the theatre complex is currently known as the HB Thom Theatre. Although this name will no longer be used, it will be contextualised in the building. Before the refurbishment, the theatre consisted exclusively of a single auditorium, but the creative space now includes a seminar room and a smaller laboratory theatre. The Adam Small Theatre complex thus refers to the multifunctional facility as a whole. – Staff Reporter