Cape Town - Newly nominated ActionSA premier candidate Angela Sobey, fired her first election salvo when she, with a handful of supporters, march on the provincial police headquarters to protest the cops' handling of gender-based violence (GBV) cases.
The party said there's an alarming prevalence of gender-based violence and femicide in the province, and that last year, the Western Cape Department of Police Oversight and Community Safety (Pocs) revealed that more than 70 GBV cases were struck off the court roll in just six months due to poor investigations conducted by the police.
“As ActionSA, we are here to amplify the call for better support at our victim desks at our police stations. We want our police stations and our police officers to be better resourced and better supported so that we can provide our victims of gender-based violence and femicide with the dignity and support that they deserve when they go to the police for help,” said Sobey.
She said that in order for the police to be able to do their jobs, they needed to be well-resourced.
“Those gender desks need to be properly resourced. As ActionSA, one of our policies is to ensure that our public services, including our police, our educators, our health-care workers, and those in the public service, are paid a living wage, that we pay our public officers well, so that they can serve with pride and they can serve with dignity.
“We find ourselves often as communities in South Africa under siege, and it's not just a gender thing. Our LGBT community is equally under siege. Our sex workers are under siege. We cannot stand by any longer and just allow this to be yet another news article and to be yet another picket and yet another whatever.”
Addressing her supporters, Sobey said that the party will sustain the momentum as ActionSA to ensure that these issues are addressed.
“Where we will see them being addressed is on the ground at the police stations. We want responses from this government. We want our people to be served with dignity.
“You do not have to go and be victimised again when you go to a police station after having been violated; after having been raped, you do not deserve to go to a police station and be victimised again,” said Sobey.
Between October 2022 and March last year, the second and third quarter reports of the Pocs Court Watching Briefs (CWB) unit show that a staggering 283 cases monitored during this period at 33 courts linked to 82 police stations across the province were struck off the court roll due to police inefficiencies.
“This consists of 153 cases monitored during quarter three at 15 courts, covering 40 SAPS stations, and 130 during quarter four at 18 courts, covering 42 SAPS stations. The quarter three report also consists of a post-monitoring brief of 84 murder cases at 20 SAPS stations.
“This is 33 fewer murder cases than the 117 dockets requested from SAPS,” said Pocs.
The courts that were monitored by CWB are located in Khayelitsha, Bishop Lavis, Blue Downs, Strand, Philippi, Mitchells Plain, Bellville, Wynberg, Athlone, Goodwood, Kuilsriver, Atlantis, Malmesbury, Paarl, Vredenburg, Ceres, Clanwilliam, Vredendal, Oudtshoorn, George, Mossel Bay, Plettenberg Bay, and Knysna.
The police said that they have noted the concerns and will report back to ActionSA within 14 days.