Gauteng police have released crime statistics for the third quarter of the year and again it paints a grim picture, showing that we are not making inroads in the fight against crime. Naturally, the focus was on major crimes, with murder and rape in sharp focus.
Murder, with a total of 1,320 victims, rose by 229 cases from the previous quarter. That was to be expected as the review period included the July violence and looting spree during which more than 300 people lost their lives.
Gauteng provincial commissioner Lt-Gen Elias Mawela then turned his attention to rape, a crime for which SA unfortunately has the dubious distinction of being a world leader. In the period between July and September, sexual offences, including rape, increased. The total included 421 cases, which took place in the home of the victim or the offender, while in “131 cases the crimes were committed in public spaces such as streets, parking areas and abandoned buildings”.
Mawela then called on women to try to avoid situations that rendered them vulnerable and at the mercy of rapists. His statement raised the ire of women and gender activists, and as can be read elsewhere in the paper today, he has sought to clarify the message he was trying to put across.
Taken in its totality, his message is welcome, though some may argue that it could have been dressed up in better language.
The statistics quoted above show the nature of the rape epidemic in this country: by far the largest number of those raped fell victim to a perpetrator known to them, and often in these instances there is little that the victim could have done to avoid the attack.
That also talks to the fact that many such crimes go unreported, which leaves us wondering what the true picture is. The figures above show that 552 people were raped in Gauteng between the beginning of July and the end of September.
Let that sink in.
As a nation we cannot go around regarding such horrendous statistics as normal. Every resource at our disposal, including the messaging to victims and perpetrators, needs to be used to reaffirm unequivocally that this cannot be our normal any longer.
Every one of the right-minded people among us should be working towards dragging us out of such inhumanity visited upon our fellow human beings. If we have police stations ill-equipped to help rape victims, let’s make noise about it. If we happen to know families that harbour perpetrators because they’re kin, speak out. That way we would have done our bit, and every effort counts.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.