Chairperson, Ministers present here and Deputy Ministers, Members of Parliament and our guests in the gallery, in less than a week's time a South African delegation will be attending the 57th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, UNCSW, and inevitably our country will be in the spotlight, unfortunately not so much of a glorified spotlight, if I may say so, but sadly a gory one.
The latest obscene and brutal sexual violence perpetrated against women and children in our country has prompted the President to instruct all law enforcement agencies to treat these cases with the utmost urgency and importance. On behalf of the Minister of Police, we pledge that the police will have no mercy when dealing with these heinous criminals.
Chairperson, already the SAPS Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Units, FCS, are proving to be a necessary thorn to these brutal and heartless criminals. There are 176 established FCS units in the nine provinces. We are also beefing up the capacity in these units. For instance, 200 forensic social workers have been trained to deal with crimes against children in order to provide expert evidence in court. Since the re- establishment of these FCS units in 2010 by the Ministry of Police, there were combined sentences of 36 225 years' imprisonment, and 695 life imprisonments. The forensic science laboratory provides specialised technical analysis and support to investigators regarding evidence on gender-based violence.
The Department of Police also conducts other operations that include crime stop and missing persons' awareness and information-sharing campaigns with communities, schools and churches in an effort to curb this scourge. During the reporting period, 1 April 2012 until 31 December 2012, about 385 campaigns were conducted. Future activities include hosting talk shows in the media to educate the community, a joint awareness campaign with the National Prosecuting Authority, NPA, and enhancing victim support services provided in the victim-friendly rooms. The Department of Police will support the initiative of reopening the special courts for sexual offences, as mentioned by other members.
Linked to the above progress is the revamp of our recruitment and related training of our new police students. Not only are police students now trained for two years instead of the previous six months, but the Basic Police Development Learning Programme now also includes the topics victim empowerment, child justice, human rights, domestic violence, and the Act on sexual offences.
We can affirm to the House that all learning areas in the Academy phase now allow both trainees and trainers to be able to link the academic theory with the tactical training for a better understanding of effective and efficient policing. We are not stopping there to improve on our policing. We have also realised that our own police officers have been involved in infanticide cases. Yet, we have programmes health and wellness for our police officers.
Chairperson, most importantly, as the SAPS, we realise that building an in- house gender equality and preventing gender-based violence cannot be only a women's issue; it must be a human issue, which then must also involve men and boys. That is why we have supported the initiative started by male police officers in the Department of Police, the SAPS' Men for Change.
The SAPS' Men for Change is a network within the Department of Police that seeks to understand gender equality in order to contribute to the discussions on how men can get involved in building towards gender equality and dismantling gender-based violence. The SAPS' Men for Change believe in the philosophy that says: You can't be part of the solution until you understand how you are part of the problem. This philosophy applies to all of us - government, civil society, business, community, faith-based organisations, traditional leaders and, indeed, the police themselves.
It is a fact that police can never ever fight this kind of crime alone, because it involves a host of other factors and contexts. For instance, there are environments that enable gender-based violence, which will never be easily accessible to police officers to swiftly enact the law against these perpetrators, for example crimes that happen behind closed doors. Cosatu has also reiterated this fact in its memorandum delivered during its antirape and abuse rally. The memorandum said:
We cannot have policemen or police women in every street. We need to watch over each other. We need to take our streets back from the criminal minority.
Chairperson, the vision of "working together, we can do more," as manifested by the ANC-led government in 2009, is surely now being made more visible. The establishment of the National Council Against Gender-Based Violence is a step forward in addressing gender-based violence and its root causes, and this is where we are urged by the President to make sure that the newly formed Council Against Gender-Based Violence becomes an effective co-ordinating structure that will make the campaign of fighting violence against women and children an everyday campaign.
For this, the council will have to obligate us as leaders to observe one fundamental aspect, namely that to fight violence against women and children efficiently, we need to take compassionate action and create peaceful, healthy relationships, peaceful families and empowered communities. Yes, people might ask: Why establish a national council whilst we already have such progressive policies and legislation in place to fight abuse of women and children? The answer to this, Chairperson, is this: The environment I have already mentioned as hindering and humiliating women and children forces us to recognise that gender-based violence undermines not only the safety, dignity and human rights of the most vulnerable of our society - that is women, children, the elderly and people with disability - but it also undermines public health, economic stability, and the general welfare of our nation.
Therefore, it is of paramount importance that we have effective collaboration between the police and all structures within the community. For instance, we desperately need proper representation of police components in the Community Police Forums, CPFs. A well-structured CPF will definitely include the head of the FCS, the head of the Detective Unit and, of course, the station commander himself or herself. The introduction of the CPF was also to help the democratic government to align the values of the police organisation with those of a democratic South Africa, aiming at producing police officers who can interact sensitively with their communities and in a manner that respects local norms and values - above all the human rights of everyone. Chairperson, in order for community structures such as CPFs to make a huge difference in the efficiency and effectiveness of the SAPS, they must start to play an active and innovative role in earnest in the implementation of sector policing.
Chair, the ANC-led government introduced sector policing because it was a policing method targeting small, manageable geographical areas within a policing precinct, involving all role-players in identifying the particular policing needs in each sector and addressing the root causes of crime as well as the enabling and contributing factors of crime. Sector policing ensures effective crime prevention to reduce the levels of prioritised crimes within the community and to improve community safety. The above definition of sector policing is a clear and unambiguous acknowledgement that there is an inevitable or a natural police limitation in curbing crime.
This limitation is not because the police are incompetent, as said by previous speakers here, or that there are not enough funds for crime- busting resources. The truth is that most of the crimes committed in South Africa are crimes arising out of factors over which the police have little or no control whatsoever. Factors that stimulate crime, as I had earlier mentioned, such as poverty, unemployment, gender inequality, and a decline in the standards of morality or moral fibre, have nothing to do with the core mandate of the police per se, but increasingly the police are called to curb violent service delivery protests, labour strikes, and indeed domestic violence, including the molestation of children - and we acknowledge what the police is doing.
The reality is that police officers today face a society in which parents fail to raise their children appropriately as law-abiding citizens. Today, we are saying all sectors of the community, such as family, school, religion, traditional sectors, and peers must be effectively represented in the National Council Against Gender-Based Violence and in all other working structures, such as CPFs, to curb this scourge. The important role that these informal instruments and structures of social control play in keeping the fabric of society intact, which are represented by the traditional institution of ethical values, needs to be recognised, and they must not be allowed to crumble.
This can be achieved only if the established instruments, such as the National Council Against Gender-Based Violence, acknowledge that communities are comprised of many different people, each with his or her own skills, views and innovative ideas that can make a huge difference in the sector. Sector policing can only be effective if instruments such as the National Council Against Gender-Based Violence and CPFs help the police to adapt the policing and operations according to sector dynamics. These dynamics can only be known by local people who come from families and faith- based organisations. Therefore, as a country, we need a multiyear and multilayered strategy to effectively respond to and prevent gender-based violence.
In this instance, we commend the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development for the establishment of the Thuthuzela Care Centres, where different departments, such as Police, Health, Social Development and other sister departments, are collaboratively providing necessary services, such as counselling and safety and justice to our most vulnerable groups - women, children, and elderly people. Coupled with the establishment of these care centres is the necessity to review our policy, legislation and strategies to ensure that our government's priority to ensure that all people living in South Africa are and do feel safe, is continuously being realised fully. For example, the White Paper on Safety and Security is soon going to be tabled in Parliament - Ntate Moruti [Reverend], your committee - to begin with public hearings. This policy review is to make sure that our strategies and programmes properly articulate the safety needs of our people. In this instance, the SAPS programme of building police stations in rural areas must be aligned with the SAPS Rural Safety Strategy.
To successfully build police stations in these areas, we need a co- ordinated strategy between the SAPS, Public Works, and other stakeholders. We also need to address, with other government departments, inhibiting factors such as the environmental design of rural environments, suburbs and informal settlements, no street lights, unclear identification of residences and road conditions, etc. As collaborating government departments, we thus must find a broader notion of safety and security that is not only defined in policing terms, but in terms of the security of women and children that is defined in human terms.
What we mean by this notion of human terms is that government, civil society, faith-based organisations and all other stakeholders have to quickly consolidate all single and scattered efforts to address gender- based violence from various stakeholders into one concrete and visible vision, mission and impactful outcome for the whole nation. Gratefully, we have been told that South Africa will no longer celebrate 16 Days of Activism, but 365 Days of Activism, just as our President has directed us. This is indeed a perfect start to a consolidated effort. For if good law- abiding citizens, the residents of this country, keep their mouths closed to injustice for the rest of the 349 days, then they are not only allowing the gender-based violence to continue, but they are also enabling it and making it easier for the perpetrators to continue the heinous scourge.
The National Council Against Gender-Based Violence's mandate will not be a substitute for current progressive legislation that addresses the abuse of women and children, but this council must affirm, endorse and re-enforce the implementation of these laws by making sure that all stakeholders, especially the survivors of violence themselves, are fully engaged to transform the abusive environment. The transformative laws enacted by government, the honest advocacy of all civil society for these laws, and the willingness of victims to voice their stories on gender-based violence, are the connection between government and the people it serves, connecting in a way that no speech by a politician or a project by a single nongovernmental organisation connects.
Chairperson, as I have mentioned already, the police are trying very hard to reduce the rate of this crime against women and children by strengthening the FCS units, reskilling the detectives for higher conviction rates and harsher sentences and indeed discouraging victims to drop charges against perpetrators. We must, as Members of Parliament, also play our part; we must embark on campaigns. The issue of cases being withdrawn by victims creates the impression that we as the cluster are failing, whereas the problem is within the community.
Although the registration of the sexual offenders resides under the custody of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, the SAPS is utilising the register for new investigations and vetting purposes. Ultimately, though, the best agents of change to stop sexual and gender- based violence are the families, the communities, the citizens, and the survivors themselves. The National Council Against Gender-Based Violence needs to quickly develop ways to fully engage these critical stakeholders, to work together with government against gender-based violence.
As the Ministry of Police, we reiterate that we support fully the initiatives of the National Council Against Gender-Based Violence, and we pledge our active participation as one of the stakeholders to combat and prevent all types of violence against women and children. Gone are the days where violence against women and children will be treated as a private matter, with deafening silence and thus as a lesser offence in the eyes of the law. As police, we are pledging that, with the existence of the FCS units across the country, victims will never again suffer in silence.
Never again will our vulnerable groups live in fear in their own houses as the police will never be able to fight this scourge alone - we need everybody, Members of Parliament and the communities - because these rapists, perpetrators, live within the communities where we live and where our constituencies are. The police are playing their part, but let us not forget that the police are human beings. Especially if they are working very hard, they will definitely make mistakes. Thank you. [Applause.]