Johannesburg, 08/04/2022 (MAP) – South Africa needs a more responsive and collaborative criminal justice system with communities to effectively tackle the scourge of gender based violence (GBV), said Friday the South African Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.
“There can be no success in the fight against this phenomenon without the participation of eyewitnesses who are in the communities and the testimonies of the victims. We need them to have a functioning criminal justice system”, said the ministry’s chief director, Praise Kambula, during a webinar on the implementation of the National Strategic Plan (NSP) to end gender-based violence.
Emphasizing that the responsibility begins at the individual level to change the criminal justice system, she called on “every individual in the country to take responsibility and be an agent of change.”
Furthermore, Ms. Kambula reported that while the number of femicide cases has decreased in the country, an increase in sexual crimes has been recorded, especially among children.
The age of GBV perpetrators is “getting younger day by day”, she lamented, noting that in 2020/21, South Africa saw a 22% increase in cases of rape perpetrated by children between the ages of 10 and 16, which is deeply concerning as this phenomenon originates in the children’s families.
