The rate at which South African women were being abused, violated and killed between July and September 2022 remains “worrying and unacceptable,” Police Minister Bheki Cele has told reporters.
The minister said this on Wednesday when he released crime statistics which saw a double-digit percentage increase for murder, attempted murder, and assault grievous bodily harm against women.
According to Cele, the saddest thing about these crimes was that many women were “killed by the people they know, people they love, and trust.”
In the reporting period, Cele said that over 13,000 women were victims of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
While 1,277 women were victims of attempted murder, some 989 women were murdered during this reporting period, he added.
The minister said over 10,000 rape cases were opened with the South African Police Service over the three months.
“From a sample of 8,227 rape incidents that were perused, it was determined that 5,083 – some 62% – of these incidents occurred at the residence of the victims or perpetrators,” he said.
The minister said a total of 1,651 of the rape incidents occurred in public places such as streets and parks and on beaches.
Mpumalanga province was the only province among the country’s nine regions to report a decrease in rape incidents during the period.
“Inanda police station in KwaZulu-Natal, Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, and Delft in the Western Cape are the three top stations with the highest rape cases,” he said.
NM/jn/APA