Police Minister Bheki Cele has highlighted the importance of the police role in protecting women and children. He is in Mthatha, Eastern Cape, where he is conducting site visits as part of ensuring a safer festive season.
He has raised concern that the abuse, sexual assault and rape of women is rife in the OR Tambo region, with Lusikisiki recording more of those cases.
He has called on police officers to do everything in their power to protect women and children.
“Men must understand that women are not there for their pleasures. Women are fully human beings that they have the space and they have the space granted by God that they live as they wish. So it’s important that when you see that a woman is under threat, drop as an officer every and anything and protect those women and those children.
So that’s the main call because the other stuff at this juncture is that the women and children are abused.
#PoliceMinistry According to the latest #CrimeStats released by the SAPS, the Mthatha policing area has recorded the 5th highest cases of rape and 13 highest murder cases in SA. Lusikisiki remains one of the top 3 stations in South African to record the highest cases of rape ML pic.twitter.com/9JO0x1tKGX
— SA Police Service ?? (@SAPoliceService) December 21, 2021
Alcohol abuse
Meanwhile, Safety and Liaison MEC Weziwe Tikana-Gxothiwe has described alcohol abuse as a catalyst of serious crimes.
“Dealing with alcohol abuse will be our priority. For we know that if we are successful in doing that, will have saved a lot of people from a lot of unsavoury situations, both on the roads from alcohol-induced vehicle accidents and at their homes from alcohol-induced domestic violence.”
New mobile police station for Makhaza
A new mobile police station has officially been launched at Makhaza in Khayelitsha. Residents have been complaining for years about inadequate policing and a lack of resources.
The Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry into Policing also found that there was a shortage of police services.
In 2014, the Commission recommended that a police station be built in the area and that more resources be deployed in the community.
The temporary mobile police station will be manned by 60 officers. It will also have 10 police vehicles.
Police Minister Bheki Cele says the station is an example of the redistribution of police resources to crime-ridden communities.
“We must rearrange, as that commission said, the availability of resources. It’s exactly what we are doing, that we will move even here intra-movement of resources. In this province, for almost a year now, we have sent 200 extra police every month, from other provinces that are deployed around here.”
New mobile police station officially launched at Makhaza in Khayelitsha:
