“It is abundantly clear that South Africans have been abandoned by the government in the war against crime. We are on our own when it comes to safety and security. While the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, described the ‘high quality service the South African Police Service (SAPS) provide for all people of South Africa’ as ‘among the best in the world’ at the 2024 national police day celebrations yesterday, the Q3 crime statistics of 2023/24 revealed that a woman is raped every 12 minutes in South Africa,” according to Ian Cameron, Director of Community Safety at Action Society.
According to the latest crime statistics, a rape is reported every 12 minutes. Every day, 86 people are murdered and 88 attempted murder cases are reported. Every day, 595 people are assaulted with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm (Assault GBH). Yet, for the whole quarter only 622 murderers and 609 sexual crime convicts were sentenced.
“Cele boasted that the historic DNA backlog of 251 000 in 2021/22 was eradicated. We know that this is untrue. Four-year-old Mia Botha went missing from a playground close to her home on 25 September 2022, 508 days ago today, and was found brutally murdered in Nederburg, Paarl a day later, on 26 September 2022. No arrests have been made and the forensic investigation is still incomplete.”
Our children are being slaughtered. In the past year 1 116 children were killed and 1 501 were victims of attempted murder. 25 196 children were seriously assaulted.
“If the current murder rate trend continues, at least 31 000 people will be killed in the next 12 months,” said Cameron. Year on year in the same quarter, murders went up from 7 555 to 7 710 (from 84 per day to 86 per day), attempted murder went up from 7016 to 7 927 (from 78 per day to 88 per day) and Assault GBH went up from 50 582 to 53 513 (from 562 to 595 per day).
“The state has lost control. Communities must lawfully organise, mobilise, train and arm themselves,” Cameron concluded.
