Women, child killers in focus

HUMAN Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has urged the ANC policy conference to propose tough sentences for those convicted for the rape and killing of women and children.

In an interview with The Star on the sidelines of the conference, Sisulu, who is also the chairperson of the ANC’s subcommittee on social transformation, said they want to stamp out violence against women and children.

In the past few weeks there has been a spate of cases of violence against women and children in which most of the victims were murdered by someone they knew.

Sisulu said this was a matter the ANC was taking seriously and they want to lobby society for tough sentences for the people involved in the murder of women and children.

“Something is wrong with the social fabric of our society. We need to find out what has gone wrong. How do we as the ANC respond to this,” asked Sisulu.

She added they would also have to engage religious leaders on the matter to see how they could assist.

“We will do something about the protection of women,” she said of the ANC policy conference.

“The conference will have to come up with a proposal to lobby for tough sentences in the courts.”

Sisulu said they would also have to lobby society for tough sentences for those convicted for these crimes.

She also spoke out strongly against delays by the government to provide services to communities, saying it had to try to respond more quickly to the needs of communities, before service delivery protests flared up.

“Where we have a role to play, it is important to take time to reflect on what the bottlenecks are in order to contain the anger in some of the protests,” said Sisulu.