Church members present demands to SAPS in march against GBV
Group call for increased patrolling of taverns and streets to ensure safety of women and children
Visible Policing head, Colonel Monray Nel, said if South Africans did not stand together against violent crime “we won’t win the fight”.
He was addressing about 30 women from the Methodist Church of Southern Africa’s 201 Circuit who marched from the BATA taxi rank to the Grahamstown Police Station in Beaufort Street, Makhanda, on Thursday August 4.
The march came in the first week of National Women’s Month and as the nation still reels from the horrific gang rape of eight women in Krugersdorp, Gauteng, recently.
With station commander Colonel Mbulelo Pika out of town, Nel met the marchers and received the group’s memorandum from church member Zukiswa Mhlwatika.
The memorandum spoke of women’s “heartache and disappointment” when it came to the handling of cases by the South African Police Service in general, and their response to domestic violence matters, both reported and unreported.
They said there were many unresolved cases concerning domestic violence, rape and substance abuse.
They demanded: Police be visible at taverns to monitor closing times every day;
Unannounced raids on suspected drug dealers’ households, “as they are known by our community members”;
Police provide quick, transparent responses to reported incidents;
Full patrols by the SAPS “as we are not safe at our own households”;
“Safety of our kids and senior citizens from abusers, to enjoy their freedom in their own streets”.
Nel acknowledged their concerns and said it should not take a tragedy such as in Enyobeni for authorities to act.
Last month, 21 young people, the youngest 13, died in the tavern tragedy in East London.
He said the memorandum would go from station commander Colonel Pika to the SAPS provincial office, then the national office and table of the minister.
“That is how seriously the South African Police Service is taking GBV and drug abuse,” Nel said.
He acknowledged communities’ frustration when they saw most people arrested
on drug charges, including alleged drug dealers, released on warning.
“Someone arrested on drug charges doesn’t go to jail that day or the next,” he said.
“The police will know what the drug is that we’ve found in their possession; but a court of law will not accept our knowledge as evidence in a drug charge: there has to be a laboratory report confirming it.
“A lab report that the court will accept can take anything from six months to a year to produce,” he said.
“Meanwhile the person charged is still walking around in the community and that makes people think the police aren’t doing their job.
“Everything in your petition is getting attention at national government level,” Nel assured
Nel urged people to be part of the solution by joining the community policing forums.