South Africa: Lack of political will to deal with high rates of crime

The quarterly crime statistics released by Police Minister Bheki Cele show that there is no political will to bring crime under control in South Africa, especially murder and sexual offences, Amnesty International South Africa said.

The crime statistics released today show that there was an increase of 22.2% in murder in the first three months of 2022. It is particularly concerning that the murder of women increased by 17.5% with 898 women killed in the three-month period. The murder of children had an exponential increase of 37.2%. Minister Cele said 306 of child murders were children under the age of 17

Meanwhile, sexual offences increased by 13.7%. Rape increased by 13.7% with 10,818 reported cases from January to March 2022. Of these, 4,653 took place at the home of the victim or the home of the rapist. Cases of sexual assault increased by 13.4%.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced a number of initiatives to help fight gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF), but to date, very few of these have been implemented and GBVF remains staggeringly high, and is on the rise, in the country.

“The government continues to fail people, especially women and children, in the country who continue to face horrendous crimes against them, with little to no action from the country’s duty bearers. The State has an obligation to protect people’s rights to life and security and we are not seeing this obligation realised,” Amnesty International South Africa Executive Director Shenilla Mohamed said.

“There doesn’t seem to be any political will to bring down these numbers. Each of these numbers is a human being with a family, and we need to stop looking at these as statistics. These are people whose lives have been brutally taken away or traumatised.”

Kidnappings

Amnesty International South Africa has also noted the more than 100% increase in cases of kidnapping, with 3,306 cases reported from January to March this year. Minister Cele reported that most of these cases related to hijacking, robbery and rape.

Crimes Against Children

We also note with concern the 37,2% increase in murder cases when it comes to crimes commited against children. This is an indication that there still a lot to be done and to reflect on as the country marks the National Child Protection Week.

“These staggering crime numbers show us that no one is safe and that there is little respect for the right to life and dignity,” Shenilla Mohamed said. 

As Minister Cele said, nothing can justify these dismal figures. While the minister says minor to major changes will help in making difference, it is the government and his department who he serves in that has failed to implement plans put in place.

“We must no longer accept excuses for the high crime rate and high rate of GBVF, and broken promises. We demand action, accountability, and transparency. We hear the same dismay expressed and lip service repeated by Minister Cele and politicians every three months when the quarterly crime stats are released, and we say enough is enough. Expressing a similar sentiment of concern, and that more must be done, is not enough in bringing down the horrendous numbers we see time and again. We need concrete action. We have the National Strategic Plan on GBVF that was adopted in 2019, and yet government departments are failing to adequately implement this,” Shenilla Mohamed said.

Background

The South African Police Service announced its fourth quarter crime statistics on 3 June 2022, outlining crime numbers from 1 January 2022 to the end of March 2022.

Amnesty International South Africa launched the third phase of its gender-based violence campaign, #InterruptBrokenPromises on 19 April 2022.

It is time to #InterruptBrokenPromises by demanding:

• The immediate establishment of the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, including the development of a costed and funded operational plan.
• The DNA backlog of 58,000 cases is cleared by the end of September 2022, as publicly committed to by Minister for Police Bheki Cele on 24 March 2022.
• The immediate rollout of appropriate, mandatory and continuous victim-centric training for personnel in the criminal justice system, increased transparency about how many people have been trained, and the impact of the training.
• For clear, measurable annual performance targets to be developed for every indicator of the National Strategic Plan on GBVF, and for this information to be made publicly available.
• For transparent, timely, accurate and regular progress reports to be made public and accessible on a bi-annual basis by all relevant government departments on the implementation of the above indicators and aligning their performance and targets across all annual performance plans, annual reports and the National Strategic Plan on GBVF.