Experts agree that unless the police sort out their statistics on gender-based violence cases and data on crimes against women and children, it will be difficult to fight the scourge.
This comes after the police withdrew certain parts of the quarterly crime stats relating to GBV and crimes against children for the period January to March 2025.
Police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe has confirmed the data was withdrawn due to duplications and inconsistencies.
She said a comprehensive review of the data sets used for reporting revealed significant anomalies in the data on crimes against women and children.
Gareth Newham, head of the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme at the Institute for Security Studies, said accurate and disaggregated data is vital in understanding patterns and directing interventions.
“It's important to release this data so that organisations working to combat and reduce GBV understand the patterns and whether the trends are going up or down, and so forth.
“Again, it's also important to realise that the police data, not just in South Africa, but anywhere in the world, on GBV is outside the murder statistics,” Newham said.
Newham stressed that while missing high-level data doesn't directly affect victims who are assisted case by case by police units such as the Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offences (FCS) units, national efforts still suffer when broader patterns are obscured.
A manager at Crime and Justice Information Hub, Lizette Lancaster, said there may have been a miscommunication about the status of the data, not a deliberate omission.
“This data has always been included in crime statistics releases, and it may be that the top did not take note that it was excluded for quarter four. The data was excluded for good reason, the Crime Registrar encountered data problems with how the data was collected,” Lancaster said.
Newham noted this is not the first time SAPS has failed to release credible data.
“Back in 2009, under then national commissioner Bheki Cele, the SAPS delayed releasing stats because of data entry problems. For example, someone reporting a stolen wallet on a taxi might have it logged as a cash-in-transit heist. Errors like that make data useless.”
He argued for greater resourcing and training at the Crime Registrar's Office, which oversees national data aggregation from more than 1,169 police stations.
“The challenge is ensuring station-level staff understand the importance of correct data capture. The system is only as reliable as its weakest entry point.”
“The Crime Registrar, through ongoing validation processes, found that the data on women and children was not reliable. Therefore, the decision was made not to include these any longer in crime stats releases,” Lancaster said.
Dr Mpho Matlala, law enforcement expert from the University of South Africa College of Law, said if data sets are inaccurate, not even the highest form of analysis using cutting-edge tools will ever yield results that can inform appropriate interventions.
He said when data is missing or withheld, victims are affected in various ways.
“Apart from receiving appropriate interventions that are scientifically backed, most data relating to GBV or crimes against children bears evidential value.
“The absence of such data could mean victims do not get the justice they deserve as courts of law will acquit the perpetrators, that is in the absence of evidence to support the claims or accusations. Such eventuality can also breed feelings of despondency, worthlessness, and in extreme cases, acute depression or even victim suicide.
“The scientificity of interventions on the other hand, may restore hope and newly found emotional strength or intelligence in survivors,” Matlala said.
Further, excluded data may have revealed a number of issues.
“The data will have shown how widespread GBV and crimes against children are in South Africa and how disproportionately it affects women and girls, that the issues are rooted in a system of unequal power between women and men, that government and police strategies are not empirically driven, that resources are distributed after a non-scientific approach, that stakeholders in the public space don't understand the problem and don't know how to deal with it.”
It would also have shown that approaching the problem in a multidisciplinary fashion is just rhetoric and that the police are not adequately trained and equipped to deal with the problem, he added.
“Generally, available data on GBV and child abuse may have revealed that South Africa is a society in ICU, that most of its male species are broken, delusional with entitlement to women's bodies, that society needs to be debriefed from the colonial hangover of patriotism, culturally backed bigotry and misogyny, theological rhetorics relating to theories of creation, and other inherent biases, some of which may even border on psychopathy,” he said.
Matlala said the omission is the sugar-coating of the problem and shows disregard for the plight of women, in particular to reaffirming their humanity.
He said the omission also points to a less caring government or police, who will talk about the issue yet continue to mislead.
“Concealing information or part thereof is tantamount to misleading or a misrepresentation of the problem. This underscores the issue of whether the woman is free in this democracy, which is doubtful, free politically, yes. What is the logic of political freedom when women continue to be dehumanised? The omission means the police are failing in their constitutional mandate,” he added .
The mix-up led to the DA accusing the police of misleading parliament with flawed crime statistics.
On June 23, the DA formally sent a request that police minister Senzo Mchunu appear before parliament's police portfolio committee to account for the discrepancies.
“The SAPS management at first informed us that these stats were combined in totality with the contact crime figures, but then later changed their answer. This does leave one questioning the rationale behind it,” said Lisa-Maré Schickerling, DA deputy spokesperson on police.
Schickerling said this raises serious questions about their rationale.
According to Schickerling, “facts” seem to have been replaced by “discrepancies” — casting doubt on the police's credibility and the effectiveness of the country’s GBV response.
Mathe said a comprehensive review of the data sets used for reporting revealed significant anomalies in the data on crimes against women and children.
“Discrepancies were identified between the sum of quarterly data and the annual totals, which could not be reconciled. Duplication of crime counts was observed, resulting in inflated figures where the subset [women and children] exceeded the total population of victims. Data integrity issues were traced to inconsistencies in victim-linking and demographic recording.”
Mathe said given the seriousness of the findings, police management decided to halt the release of the disaggregated statistics and withdraw the previously published data from their website.
“This decision was taken to uphold the integrity of SAPS. The national commissioner has directed the relevant stakeholders to urgently investigate and resolve the identified data challenges. This process is now under way, and the statistics on crimes against women and children will be reinstated once the data has been corrected and validated. The revised statistics will be accompanied by a detailed explanation of the nature and implications of the revisions,” Mathe said.
Dr Tara Harris from the department of social work and criminology at the University of Pretoria said providing false or misleading information to parliament carries serious legal and institutional consequences for the police.
“Legislation such as the powers, privileges and immunities of parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act, the constitution, and the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act prohibits misinformation. These laws require state bodies — including SAPS — to operate with transparency and accountability.
“Violating these obligations can result in fines, imprisonment of up to two years, internal disciplinary action, judicial review, and investigations by oversight bodies like the public protector. Where there is intent to deceive or conceal wrongdoing, SAPS officials may also face criminal charges, including fraud or corruption,” Harris said.
According to Harris, misleading parliament undermines public trust, especially on matters affecting vulnerable groups such as women and children.
“It damages SAPS’s credibility and highlights the urgent need for strong, ethical leadership. SAPS is legally and constitutionally bound to report its data truthfully, and not doing so is a breach of law and public trust.”
The absence of reliable and comprehensive data on GBV and child-related crimes undermines justice and weakens the development of effective prevention and intervention strategies.
Harris said accurate statistics are vital as they reveal the nature and extent of these crimes, identify the most vulnerable populations and communities, and allow for tracking trends over time.
“Without this information, key institutions — law enforcement, the courts, the criminal ustice system and social services — are unable to respond adequately, leaving victims unsupported and exposed to continued harm. When data is misrepresented, incomplete, or absent, interventions become poorly targeted, resources are misallocated, and outdated legislation remains. Ultimately, this further compromises public trust and severely hampers national efforts to create safer communities, particularly for women and children,” said Harris.
She added accurate, disaggregated data is foundational to the success of GBV interventions and child protection measures.
The absence of reliable data on GBV and child-related offences has a profound negative impact on victims, she said.
According to Harris, without accurate information, victims may be denied timely support and protection, while high-risk communities remain overlooked.
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