Gauteng MEC for Community Safety, Faith Mazibuko has called for victim empowerment centres in tertiary institutions.
Mazibuko says tertiary institutions that do not have victim empowerment centres subject victims of gender-based violence to secondary trauma.
“Young women, they don’t have facilities, there is no infrastructure that is available for them when there is an incident that is happening to them. They are then forced to go out especially if you are in the tertiary institutions. The challenge is that they now don’t feel safe, it means now you have secondary victimisation because it means you have to struggle, campus security not even calling police to actually come and assist you. We need to have victim empowerment centres in tertiary institutions,” says Mazibuko.
The Department held a dialogue and march under the theme ‘Reclaiming the night’ in Sophiatown, Johannesburg. An initiative aimed at sending a message, that women should be able to walk the streets at any given time.
Women relayed their experiences regarding gender-based violence. This, as the country, continues to grapple with the scourge.
Meanwhile, the National Prosecuting Authority’s Advocate Phumeza Futshane says the withdrawal of gender-based violence cases is the biggest challenge faced by the prosecuting body in tackling the phenomenon.
Futshane joined the voices calling for victims not to withdraw their cases.
Futshane says the withdrawal of cases impedes investigations, “For the NPA to manage to get a conviction or to win any case before us, we are solely dependent on our victims, on our witnesses. So if our witnesses when they are being called to come and testify and give evidence before the court, the first thing that they want to do is to withdraw those charges that is the first challenge that we experience.”
Reclaiming the night in Sophiatown https://t.co/3xWqwjAN0d
— MEC Faith Mazibuko (@FaithMazibukoSA) October 11, 2019
