The George Family Violence Child Protection and Sexual offences (FCS) unit, proved how effectively the police can fight back against violence against women and children. The FCS unit arrested 12 sex offenders between 23 and 25 March in George and surrounding Garden Route towns.
“The dedication of this team has brought the victims one step closer to justice and we commend them on a job well done. Members of the South African Police Services (SAPS) work under serious constraints and dismal top management but are still dedicated to fighting crime and putting violent criminals behind bars,” commented Ian Cameron, director of community safety at Action Society.
The arrests of these perpetrators, which all were known and identified by their victims, and three whom had warrants of arrest issued, is a great accomplishment in the fight against the pandemic of Gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) in the country. Most of the suspects appeared in the George and Knysna’s magistrate’s courts yesterday.
With the on-going DNA backlog crisis, the victims of these heinous crimes will unfortunately wait anything between 18 months and 3 years to get their day in court. Minister Cele has been talking about the eradication of the backlog by August 2022, but fails to mention how the National Forensic Science Laboratories (NFSL) is currently dealing with new cases they receive daily.
“The shocking reality for the victims is that only 8.6% of sexual offence cases are finalised with a guilty verdict. Less than one in five rape cases even make it to trial and prosecutors withdrew almost half (46.3%) of cases they had enrolled before the trial started. If FCS units across the country are empowered, they can, with good policework and enough resources, help to drastically improve the conviction rate.”
“Minister Bheki Cele should follow the example of the George FCS unit and put more effort and groundwork into the fight against GBVF, which he should be leading. With almost 150 rape cases being reported and 8 women murdered in our country daily, the time for lip service has long passed,” concluded Cameron.
