Rape, murder of women and children decrease in Gauteng

Gauteng has seen a decrease in rape cases between June and September, which have dropped by more than 160 compared to the same period last year.

Gauteng police commissioner Lt-Gen Elias Mawela presented the crime statistics for the second quarter of the 2023/2024 financial year before the Gauteng legislature on Thursday.

The stats found that the overall category of contact crimes, which include murder, attempted murder, sexual offences, assault GBH, hijackings and robberies slightly increased by 0.1%.

This means 38 more counts were reported compared to the same period last year.

However, rape and the murder of women and children have decreased.

“Rape in the province has been reduced by 7.4%, translating into a reduction of 167 counts,” Mawela said.

Johannesburg recorded the greatest decrease of cases, with 137 fewer rape cases reported, followed by the West Rand, which declined by 47 cases, while Ekurhuleni went down by nine cases.

Tshwane, however, increased by nine counts of rape, followed by Sedibeng at 17, said Gauteng’s crime registrar Brig Mpho Chakalane.

“We have reduced rape during July, August, as well as September. For July by 87, August by 58 and September by 22 ... In Gauteng’s top 40 stations [for rape], 19 stations decreased, one stabilised and 20 stations indicated an increase.”

The highest decrease was at Honeydew police station in Johannesburg, which was 20 counts lower. The highest station with recorded rape cases is Akasia, which increased by 20 counts.

The murder of women and children also decreased, with 22 fewer women killed this year compared to the second quarter last year, while the murder count of children dropped from 39 to 34.

However, attempted murder cases increased by 88 for women and 12 for children, while 39 more cases of assault GBH were reported for children. On the other hand, there was  a large decrease of 84 cases of assault GBH perpetrated against women, Chakalane said.

Domestic violence cases also increased each month from July to September, with the most domestic violence-related cases being common assault and assault GBH despite the latter crime seeing a reduction.

“In total, we have 10,236 of those that were reflected. The increases were mostly reported in the month of September with a total of 3,656. Looking at the district contribution towards this figure, Johannesburg has the highest volume towards the 10,236 figure, with 3,821,” said Chakalane.

Mawela said police action detected sexual offences, illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, drug-related crimes and drunk driving.

He said police-detected crimes had increased by more than 2,100 as compared to last year.

“The detection of these crimes is dependent on the deployment of law enforcement and crime intelligence officers. For the quarter under review, Gauteng recorded 2,127 more counts, which translates to an increase by 14.7%.

“We have also arrested 1,008 sexual offenders and managed to secure 42 life-term imprisonments, with an additional 1,084 years in prison for the quarter under review.”

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