Latest crime report: Confusion surrounding gender-based violence stats

The Minister of Police Bheki Cele has released the latest figures on crimes being committed against women and children in the 2019/2020 financial year, which surprisingly show a sharp decline – however there could be an explanation for this.

According to the numbers, contact crimes, which are: murder, attempted murder, sexual offences and assault, particularly against women, went down from 179 683 in the 2018/2019 financial year to 171 070 in the 2019/2020 period – translating to a decrease by 8 613.

While the same crimes against children totalled 45 229 in the 2018/2019 period and went down by 2 881 during the 2019/2020 period

However the department has warned that the figures are not accurate due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Head of the police crime register Lieutenant-General Norman Sekhukhune said they could not finalise their data due to some police stations, which were forced to close as a result of positive cases and other related reasons.

“We’re using two different systems, the one system that is used focusses on charges then the second one…it tries to link the charge to the victim”, Sekhukhune said.

“Normally after having extracted this information from the system, we then physically go and then look at the dockets to be in a position to allocate the specific crime type to the victim”

He added that once the situation with the coronavirus improves, they would go and verify dockets and revise the crime figures against women and children.

DA: ‘Cele needs to account for the discrepancies’

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has reacted to the discrepancies and said it would be seeking clarity from Cele.

“The overall number of rapes increased by 1.7% to 42 289 cases, but rapes against women and children decreased by 15.8% to 25 801 cases. These figures appear to indicate that 16 488 rape cases were against men”, DA police spokesperson Andrew Whitfield said.

“Minister Cele must account for these discrepancies and whether SAPS is using the stats to play political games in trying to paint a rosy picture with regards to gender-based violence”

Cele has said awareness campaigns on Gender Based Violence and Femicide needed to be intensified.

“Private sector and gender activists’ organizations must work together with government to defeat the scourge and expose perpetrators in this regard”, he said.

Cele: ‘Educational facilities hotbeds of violence’

The minister has also expressed concern over the spate of sex-crimes taking place  at institutions of learning.

“It is concern that educational facilities are becoming hotbed for sexual violence. 380 cases of rape were reported at either school, university, colleges or day centre facilities”, he said.