Suspects arrested for teenager’s murder

TWO suspects arrested in connection with the murder of a Bredasdorp teenager will appear in court.

Police made the breakthrough after questioning four people following the grim discovery of Jodine Pieters’s body.

The suspects, aged 18 and 25, have been charged with murder. Pieters’s burnt body was found on Sunday evening at a lime works factory in Bredasdorp.

The Bredasdorp community has been rocked by violent crimes against young women since the murder of 17-year-old Anene Booysen, which took place almost five years ago.

Gender-based violence organisation Sonke Gender Justice has urged the government to focus on a national plan to prevent the violence perpetrated against women and children.

Sonke Gender Justice child rights and positive parenting unit manager Wessel van den Berg lauded police for the “swift arrests”.

“The work of police is certainly laudable and we applaud SAPS for their swift response. However, we need equally swift prevention response,” Van den Berg said.

“Municipalities must invest in high schools for bystander intervention programmes because that is often what is missing. We have been calling for a national plan for genderbased violence prevention.

“The levels of violence against women and children in our country is appalling,” he said.

Bredasdorp community policing forum spokesperson Renier Louw said they commend the police for their swift arrest.

“This also means our communities are standing up against these atrocities and they are helping police in making the arrests. It is sad that such tragic events bring a community closer together, but it means we are moving in the right direction,” Louw said.

Booysen was raped, disembowelled by having her abdomen split open and left for dead. She died on February 2, 2013 after being able to utter one of her assailants’ names.

Last week Zimbabwean national Gift Sibondo, 31, was found guilty in the Western Cape High Court on three charges of kidnapping, two charges of statutory rape and the murder of his teenage girlfriend, Elda Jaftha. Jaftha, 15, was found dead under Sibondo’s bed in 2015.

The same year, the community was rocked by the brutal murder of 5-year-old Kayde Williams.

During April 2016, the body of single mother Sulnita Manho was found in a building, also at the same lime factory as Jodine.

She had been tied up, beaten with a brick, raped, stabbed and a beer bottle had been shoved in her vagina.

Work of the police is laudable. However, we need equally swift prevention