Deputy Speaker, there is a massive disconnect between claiming that the protection of women and children is a priority in our country and actually making it so. There is a massive disconnect between claiming that 80% of murders are committed by someone known to the victim and actually solving the cases, and there is a massive disconnect between claiming that because we, hon members, have passed legislation in this House, we will make the lives of our citizens better, and it actually being implemented. We had such an example this week, as we heard of the plight of Ntombi Fikile Ngidi of New Germany. She ran from her husband, fearing he would shoot her. She told the police and asked them to accompany her back to her home so she could collect some clothes and belongings.
What did the police do? Did they search the husband or the house for the firearm? No. They simply asked him if he had one, he said no and that was good enough for them. She went into their bedroom, the husband followed, he pulled the gun from his belt and shot her dead right there with the police sitting in the lounge and her three children hearing every sound. The husband died in custody and the orphans went to be raised by a relative. We passed the legislation here in the House, but when our SAPS members don't take it seriously, when a woman is treated as an inconvenient liar and the man as someone who automatically tells the truth, well, that is the massive disconnect.
Ntombi Fikile Ngidi is dead today because the police did not do what they are paid to do. They believed a man over a woman. They lounged outside allowing a man from whom she had fled in terror to enter the bedroom and shoot her dead. So how does such a man, with murder in his heart, get his hands on a firearm? Well he didn't have a licence, not that he would have been prevented from obtaining one. When a woman reports that she is threatened or beaten by her husband or partner, this is supposed to be entered into the domestic violence register. On the committee and my personal oversight visits to stations I have noticed that, inevitably, the register is the Cinderella of stations. Frequently they can't find it and when they do it is covered in dust and so poorly tendered as to be irrelevant. That is the register those in charge of handing out firearm licences are supposed to go through with a fine-tooth comb to ensure that no abusive husband or partner is given one.
Not that this man had applied for a licence, so where did the firearm come from? Let me take an educated guess, 13 438 South African Police Services firearms had disappeared over the last five years. Now, they had to obtain figures for the 11 years before that, but we will probably be looking at the over 30 thousand SAPS firearms out there in our country shooting at our citizens. What our SAPS members do is nothing short of fuelling the illegal firearms trade. Guns don't kill people. People kill people, but our SAPS members are losing and selling these firearms in the full knowledge that there will be no repercussions or ensuring that citizens with murder in their heart have the easy access to them.
The SAPS members don't even have to pay for the firearms they loose and less than 1% of cases are charges brought against them. The SAPS could not even tell if there were serial offenders. Last year, 4000 new Beretta pistols ordered by the SAPS were mostly to replace lost and stolen SAPS firearms. That is an amount of R16 million spent on procuring weapons almost entirely as a consequence of the fact that thousands of SAPS firearms are disappearing and the recovery rate is a dismal 7%. We have seen hundreds of firearms stolen from the police forensic building in Port Elizabeth, hundreds more from SAPS stations in Durban, its never-ending.
The Minister introduced a new system when he took over - it is not working. The truth is that SAPS firearms are out there in the hands of criminals who are shooting and killing our citizens. Its not legally earned firearms held by our citizens. Hon members, there is a huge disconnect between saying, year after year after year in this House, that we honour the 16 days of no violence against women and children, when we had not only the 56 000 reported sexual offences last year, but 28 000 of them were committed against children, which means that 77 children are sexually violated in this country every day. Furthermore, 42% of all sexual offences committed specifically were against children.
The current government's response to this crisis was to simultaneously declare this to be a top priority and then shut down the only unit capable of investigating them. From 2006 they began shutting down the family violence child protection and sexual offences units dispersing those expects from dealing, for example, with raped toddlers to ordinary police stations. My colleague the hon Mike Waters did an expos on what had happened to those expects and the truth is they were tossed aside like yesterday's garbage. So it became even more difficult for women and children to get help and protection from the SAPS. What they did was nothing short of criminal.
The Domestic Violence Act has been in operation ten years, but the SAPS don't seem to care about implementing it - 65% of stations are not compliant. Today the Ministry in the Police must pay Ntombis children for her death, but it will not bring her back and hopefully we will finally be given a new National Commissioner that we deserve - a career officer who takes seriously the need to protect our women and children. [Interruption.]