Give us accurate stats, NGO demands

Non-governmental organisation, Women and Men Against Child Abuse has demanded detailed and accurate sexual crime statistics from Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega.

“What concerns us at the organisation is that the police statistics don’t show a differentiation between rapes of women, men, male or female, teenagers, young children, toddlers, and or babies. Nor do they show whether or not the perpetrators are women, men or juveniles,” the organisation’s spokesperson Vincentia Dlamini said, reacting to the release of the crime stats.

“From our experience, we know there is not a decrease in sexual crimes against children. At the moment we can see there is a crisis of confidence in our criminal justice system as more victims are reporting rapes to our Kidz Clinics and are reluctant to go and open cases at their local police stations. In some cases, victims have been turned away from their police stations and come to us for assistance,” Dlamini said.

She said it was estimated that one in nine cases were actually reported and therefore the police statistics cannot be an accurate reflection of how many rapes and crimes were committed against children.

“Services from the police are not easily accessible in remote or rural communities, and some cases are dropped in court for various reasons, chief among them being the failure of police to conduct proper investigations,” she said.

While Commissioner Phiyega claimed there was a 0.4 percent decrease in sexual crimes, figures showed an increase of 1 873 cases since the last police report. “We have dealt with 1 895 new child victim cases for the same period of the police report, and we only have Kidz Clinics rendering our free medical and psycho social services in Orange Farm, Alexandra, Duduza, Pretoria and Boksburg,” said Dlamini.