Where women and children continue to go missing, be assaulted and die at the hands of violence, rape kits, meant to bring them justice, are absent.
Alarmingly, multiple South African Police Service (Saps) Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) Units in the Western Cape do not have adult or child rape kits, and where they are, they are often expired.
The discovery
Ian Cameron, chairperson of the portfolio committee on police and DA National Council of Provinces’ Select Committee member on Security and Justice, Nicholas Gotsell, discovered this on multiple unannounced oversight visits to FCS units in the province.
FCS units are specialised units that serve and assist multiple police stations in gathering evidence for sensitive and traumatic cases.
Units with no rape kits
The Nyanga, Mitchell’s Plain, Caledon and Stellenbosch FCS units were spotlighted for missing their key basic operational resources.
The Nyanga unit had no rape kits at all. It serves Cape Flats stations including Manenberg, Philippi, Athlone, Nyanga, Gugulethu, Samora Machel and Lansdowne.
The Stellenbosch unit also had no child rape kits. It serves Stellenbosch, Groot Drakenstein, Franschhoek, Kayamandi, and Cloetesville and the surrounding police stations.
Caledon had no rape kits for children and only two for adults. This unit serves Grabouw, Villiersdorp, Riviersonderend, Swellendam and Barrydale police stations
So, if a victim were to come here or be tragically raped in any of those areas, they would not be able to be assisted at any of these police stations.
Why are there no kits?
“We were told this appears to be part of a wider provincial shortage,” said Cameron.
Gotsell said these failures are unfolding under the leadership of Western Cape Provincial Commissioner, Lt Genl Thembisile Patekile, whose tenure has repeatedly been marked by serious resource failures.
“The crisis of inefficiencies within provincial and national supply chain management processes has directly contributed to procurement failures,” said Cameron.
‘How are we going to convict rapists if we don’t have the tools?’
Western Cape-based anti-GBV organisation Ilitha Labantu expressed horror that much-needed resources have not been distributed to the facilities.
“If it can take less than 24 hours for them to get up and go take these rape kits, who now needs to be held accountable? It means that there is a lack of willingness from whoever is in charge of disbursing these rape kits,” said their spokesperson, Siya Monakali.
Cameron said that if GBVF were truly treated as the national disaster Ramaphosa declared it to be, these units wouldn’t be working under such conditions.
“They would not be critically understaffed, they would not be without working vehicles, and they certainly would not be left without rape evidence kits,” he said.
“How are we going to convict rapists if we don’t have the tools?” asked Gotsell.
