A war against the nation's women and children - Ramaphosa

19 June 2020 · Carmel Rickard

In his most recent address to the country on the Covid-19 situation, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa has spoken about easing the restrictions imposed on the country since March 27. But he took his audience by surprise when he deviated from his usual format to speak strongly – even with some passion – about the terrible increase of killings and abuse of women and children that has characterised the period of restrictions imposed to curb the Coronavirus.

President Cyril Ramaphosa currently chairs the African Union, and in that capacity he used his address of June 17 to speak about the supply of testing kits, personal protection and other resources needed by all African countries.

Like many states, SA had been affected by the global shortage of coronavirus test kits and other materials. He said it was therefore essential to target tests more carefully, ‘prioritising patients in hospitals, health care workers, vulnerable people like the elderly, and hotspot areas.’

Among the initiatives being followed in collaboration with other African countries was the ‘ground-breaking Africa Medical Supplies Portal’. He explained: ‘This is a single continental market places where African countries can access critical medical supplies, such as test kits, from suppliers and manufacturers in Africa and around the world in the necessary quantities and at competitive prices.’

Manage

He said the portal would complement the work being done to ensure that the continent had ‘the medical equipment, personal protective equipment and hospital facilities to manage the anticipated increase in Covid-19 patients.’

But though this was important, he had something far more dramatic to say. It concerned gender-based violence (GBV), a problem that rages in almost every country of the world, but from which SA is suffering particularly at the moment.

‘It is with the heaviest of hearts that I stand before the women and girls of SA this evening to talk about another pandemic that is raging in our country – the killing of women and children by the men of our country.’

Appalled

‘As a man, as a husband and as a father, I am appalled at what is no less than a war being waged against the women and children of our country.’

He said violence was being unleashed on woman and children during a time when everyone was feeling vulnerable and uncertain, and that this violence was characterized by ‘a brutality that defies comprehension’.

‘These rapists and killers walk among us. They are in our communities.

No regard

‘They are our fathers, our brothers, our sons and our friends; violent men with utterly no regard for the sanctity of human life.’

He recalled that over the previous few weeks 21 women and children had been murdered. Police had done excellent work and had arrested almost all of the alleged perpetrators in these cases.

An emergency response plan had been formulated to combat GBV and femicide and R1.6 billion in government funding would be made available to support the implementation of this plan. During lockdown government had ensured that survivors of GBV had access to support and services, including the GBV hotline, shelters and centres that providing support.

Since December 2019, some 10 government-owned buildings had been handed over to the Department of Social Development for shelters. Thirteen regional courts had been upgraded into specialised sexual offences courts. To support the work of law enforcement, 7 000 evidence collection kits had been distributed regularly to every police station in the country and there were now more than 1 000 survivor-friendly rooms at police stations.

Sensitivity training

‘Many police, prosecutors, magistrates and policymakers have undergone sensitivity and awareness training and over 3 000 government employees who work with children and mentally disabled persons have been checked against the National Register of Sex Offenders.’

Changes to the law had been prepared, to reflect, among other things, ‘sentencing in cases of gender-based violence, bail conditions for suspects and greater protection for women who are victims of intimate partner violence’, and Ramaphosa urged that lawmakers in Parliament should process these amendments as quickly as possible.

‘Our courts have been firm in dealing with cases of gender-based violence even during the lockdown period, handing down life sentences and multiple life sentences to perpetrators.

‘I want to assure the women and children of SA that our criminal justice system will remain focused on gender-based violence cases and that we can expect more arrests and more prosecutions of perpetrators’.

Horrific crimes

Those who carried out violence against women and children ‘must receive sentences that fit the horrific crimes they commit.’

He said he was disturbed by the increase in abuse as the lockdown eased and particularly once alcohol had become available again and promised investigations into the links between alcohol and GBV.

‘These perpetrators are known to us and our communities. By looking away, by discouraging victims from laying charges, by shaming women for their lifestyle choices or their style of dress, we become complicity in these crimes.’ Ramaphosa called on a those listening to ‘consider the consequences of their silence.’ And he concluded by conceding that the country found itself ‘in the midst of not one, but two, devastating epidemics’ – the Coronavirus pandemic and an epidemic of GBV

Carmel Rickard

About the author

Recent articles by Carmel Rickard

‘No justification for the unjustifiable’: Lesotho’s ombud slams grand-scale torture, assault in Maseru prison

22 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Lesotho’s national ombud, Tlotliso Angelina Polaki, has issued a scathing report on massive-scale torture and assaults that took place in Maseru’s central correctional institution during December 2023, leaving about 95% of the inmates of the prison injured, one dead and one who is now wheelchair-bound and will never walk again.

Major court decision on image rights benefits Ugandan soccer players

21 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Members of Uganda’s national soccer team from the period around 2007/8 have just been awarded a payout against MTN Uganda by the commercial court. The telecom giant had a year-long contract with Proline, the players’ originating development soccer club, allowing it to use the players’ images for advertising. But MTN had continued to use their images even after that contract expired on the basis that it had a sponsorship agreement with Fufa, soccer’s governing body in Uganda. The players then challenged MTN in court, through Proline, and have now won a significant damages award. But the judgment exposed some serious flaws in the way that Fufa has approached the question of using the image rights of its senior players, and the court commented that this is a ‘case study’ for why Fufa needs to sort out its contractual arrangements with senior players.

Executive interference in Ugandan court decisions continues – this time by the justice minister

21 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Uganda’s minister of justice, Norbert Mao, has taken a leaf straight from the book of the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni. This week, the minister wrote to the principal judge of the Ugandan high court, asking that the judge directly intervene in a matter that has been brought to his attention by an MP on behalf of a constituent. Mao asked for the ‘immediate administrative intervention’ in the matter by the principal judge. Earlier this year, Museveni wrote a similar letter to the chief justice of Uganda, also requesting intervention in a matter, and the CJ later indicated that this was not the first time it had happened.

Is rape by family members treated too lightly by the law?

19 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

The high court has sent the case of a Malawian teenager, charged with raping his 89-year-old grandmother, back to the magistrate’s court for a possible re-trial because the court had wrongly prosecuted a case of rape instead of incest. If convicted in a re-trial, however, Malawi’s incest law could see the accused sentenced to a mere five years. Malawi’s penal code provides for a significant difference between the sentence to be imposed when a man rapes a close family member, and in a case where the two are not related. When they are unrelated, the code provides that a rape offender ‘shall be liable to be punished with death or with imprisonment for life’ (However, Malawi has had what amounts to a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty since 1992.) By contrast, ‘incest by males’, is categorised in the code as a ‘felony’, and anyone convicted ‘shall be liable for imprisonment for five years’. There is an exception: if it is proved ‘that the female person is under the age of 16, the offender shall be liable to imprisonment for life’.

Prominent SA advocates lose battle over conviction in Namibian courts for working without a permit, misleading immigration officials

6 March 2024
Carmel Rickard

Two prominent South African advocates have just lost their last hope of squashing their convictions in the Namibian courts. Johannesburg advocates, Mike Hellens SC and Dawie Joubert SC, had been found guilty on two counts, first, working as legal practitioners without an employment permit, and second, giving false or misleading information to immigration officers when they entered the country in 2019. Though they had gone to Namibia to appear in court in a bail application, they told the immigration officials they were there for a ‘visit’ and for a ‘meeting’. Both appealed against their conviction but they had also asked for a judicial review of the decision. In the high court they lost their appeal but won on the review. The outcome in both matters were taken to the apex supreme court for a final word. In December 2023, they lost their appeal at the supreme court. What would that same court say when the state appealed against the review finding? The supreme court has now given its answer: it found the review, that had favoured Hellens and Joubert, was wrongly decided, and set it aside, awarding costs against the two advocates in both the high court and the supreme court.