Women’s shelters raise concern over missing GBV dockets

The lack of police accountability and under-resourcing are some of the issues that allow gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) to go unprosecuted in South Africa. This has been revealed by the National Shelter Movement of South Africa (NSMSA).

In a statement it released on Tuesday, the NSMSA, which serves as an umbrella body for 96 women’s shelters across the country, said that in the last five years courts have thrown out dozens of GBV cases due to dockets that go missing in the hands of the South African Police Services (Saps). The organisation says that the government has yet to identify where the cracks are between the reporting stage and the submission of dockets to the courts for prosecution.

Greer Schoeman, a NSMSA board member, stressed the need to have dedicated GBV desks in police stations and proper resources in women’s shelters. “Our statistics of GBVF are still some of the highest in the world, nearly six times the global average. We know that the vast majority of cases go unreported and there should be a GBV desk at every police station and proper resources for women’s shelters. One-stop shops have been proven to work more efficiently, if you compare cases reported at Thuthuzela Care Centres, to cases reported at Saps,” she said.

On Monday, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) opened the country’s 65th Thuthuzela Care Centre, in Mitchells Plain. The centres have been hailed for improved reporting of GBV cases, speedy prosecution and longer sentences for those found guilty, though all of that has not resulted in lower GBV crime rates. “The rate of prosecution is much better if a woman goes through the centre and that is the survivor-centred response we need to work on. This will also start to limit secondary victimisation which is quite rampant. We need better accountability and cooperation between SAPS and first responder organisations, who are working on the ground to assist women,” Schoeman explained. 

National Co-ordinator at NSMSA, Anisa Moosa, said it is unacceptable that a huge number of sexual assault cases still remain unresolved. “The Saps statistics show an increase in cases of assault, attempted murder and murder of women and children. This is a basic human rights issue that has serious and devastating implications for South Africa, where the statistics for GBVF are already amongst the highest in the world. There is a lack of confidence in our justice system that stems from its failure to protect and ensure the safety of those in need,” said Moosa. 

NSMSA board member Teboho Mashota said they strongly support a call for investigation into the missing dockets. “It is a very big concern that dockets, which are supposedly stored electronically, can go missing. Digital systems have security features and therefore we should not be dealing with cases of missing dockets. This is a clear indication that GBVF is still not being prioritised in a country with high levels of violence against women and children because no one is speaking out on behalf of the victims who opened the cases,” said Mashota.

Police underfunding blamed for injustice

Earlier this month, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) raised alarm over revelations that, since 2018, the Saps closed almost 300,000 cases due to insufficient evidence. According to the union federation, several calls have been made for the capacitation of the police that have not been responded to with urgency. “These alarming statistics expose deficiencies in some security clusters, specifically in policing. It cannot be that due to minimal resources and staffing shortages in the SAPS, injustice is peddled to victims of crime. Perpetrators cannot be given a free pass to freedom at the expense of the communities whose confidence in the police is already shaky,” Cosatu said in a statement. 

In June this year, the Office of the Public Protector released a damning report regarding the poor service that GBV victims have to endure when they most need support from law enforcement. In the report, Public Protector Gcaleka found that the police did not put adequate measures in place to respond to incidents of GBV.  “Most police stations, especially in rural areas, do not have victim-friendly rooms and victims of GBV are forced to relate the abuse they have suffered in crowded police stations,” the report cautions. 

The police ministry has also been affected by budget cuts that have been a feature of the national budget since 2015. In 2019, a report by the Department of Community Policing in the Western Cape which surveyed 150 police stations over six months found that detective services in the province were in a dire situation as detectives are under-resourced, lack training and that their work is not guided by intelligence.

The South African Police Services had not responded to questions sent to them by the time of publication.