Police stations lack sufficient rape kits

SA Women Fight Back (SAWFB), an organisation fighting gender-based violence (GBV) has raised the question of the lack of rape kits at police after reports revealed that the backlog in processing DNA case exhibits at the National Forensic Science Laboratories (NFSL) was nearing 100 000 cases.

The organisation said it had called 35 police stations in the Western Cape, and found that only seven had a sufficient number of rape kits while some did not even know what a rape kit was.

A rape kit is a common term used to refer to kits used to collect evidence from victims of sexual assault and rape.

They said Grassy Park, Mitchells

Plain 1,2 and 3, Sir Lowry’s Pass, Gordons Bay, Woodstock, and Tableview police stations had no rape kits.

Bothasig, Parow, Lingelethu West, Wynberg, Lansdowne, Elsies River and Richards Bay police stations did not have enough kits.

SAWFB founder Bronwyn Litkie

demanded transparency from the government regarding GBV-related matters, and insisted that every police station be stocked with enough rape kits.

Litkie said it was each police station’s responsibility to assure it had rape kits, and when they were running low they needed to request more.

“This is a part of their job, when a victim comes to report a rape, they have been through an immense amount of trauma, and then they are told they cannot be helped or sent away to go to a hospital… because the police are not equiped to handle the situation,” she said.

Police spokesperson Novela Potelwa said the records of the Western Cape police indicated a sufficient quantity of rape kits.

“The supplies get replenished regularly in order to cater for the demand in service points as sexual offences remain a priority for the police.”

DA police spokesperson Andrew Whitfield said the 100 000 cases were denying thousands of victims of GBV, and other crimes, recourse to justice.

Whitfield said the third quarter performance report presented to Parliament’s portfolio committee on police earlier this year for the financial year 2019/20, revealed that by the third quarter the police had only finalised 62% of case exhibits within the required 90-day period.

“The processing of DNA case exhibits is measured against a target which requires 80% of all case exhibits to be finalised within 90 days,” he said.

He said that 62% amounted to only 27 801 out of 44 253 case exhibits processed within 90 days which means that by the end of the third quarter 16 452 were not processed timeously.

“The police are yet to present their fourth quarter report to Parliament, however, I am reliably informed that the situation has worsened and that the backlog has now exploded to nearly 100 000 DNA case exhibits which have not been finalised,” Whitfield said.

He said without a fully functioning DNA testing capability at the NFSL, perpetrators of the most horrific crimes could not be brought to book and tackling GBV would remain yet another unfulfilled presidential promise.