EDITORIAL | Long queues of women seeking protection orders are unacceptable

“We know of cases of women who were killed while they had a protection order in hand.” 

These are the chilling words of domestic violence lawyer Brenda Madumise-Pajibo, who in an interview with the Sunday Times sketched a grim picture of a broken system, often failing to protect women from their abusers. The journalist spent a weekday morning at a Johannesburg magistrate’s court with women queuing outside for protection orders. Their stories are tales of vulnerability and despair. As SA marked Women’s Day on Monday, this article on the red tape needed to secure protection orders highlighted how often we fail to create safer spaces for women.

The statistics say it all: Between January and March, more than 9,500 people were raped. More than 120,000 gender-based violence cases were recorded in the first three weeks of the Covid-19 hard lockdown last year. GBV has been described as SA’s second pandemic.

The numbers paint a dire picture but we have also made some strides in fighting the scourge.

The numbers paint a dire picture but we have also made some strides in fighting the scourge. We have come some way since a heartbreaking day in August 2019 — exactly 15 days after we celebrated Women’s Day — when a promising and unsuspecting student, Uyinene Mrwetyana, was raped and bludgeoned to death in a post office in Claremont in the Western Cape. It was an attack so ruthless and bizarre it shocked society to the core. Her killer, Luyanda Botha, received three life sentences. Mrwetyana’s murder ignited the “Am I next” movement, prompting President Cyril Ramaphosa to announce reforms to deal with GBV, including harsher punishments for sex offenders.

The national assembly has since passed three bills aimed at doing just that: the Criminal and Related Matters Amendment Bill, Domestic Violence Amendment Bill and the Criminal Law (Sexual Offence and Related Matters) Amendment Act Amendment Bill. For once, a talk shop delivered a tangible outcome, with these bills being introduced after a presidential summit against gender-based violence and femicide held in November 2018. They include legislation regulating the National Register for Sex Offenders, tighten the granting of bail to perpetrators, expand the list of offences for which minimum sentences must be imposed and create a new offence of sexual intimidation.

It is admirable that these bills have been passed. These amendments represent an important shift in our approach towards not only punishing offenders, but also in finding more ways to protect victims. Now we need to improve our GBV conviction rate, which last year hovered at an abysmal 3%. We also need to find ways to simplify the process of applying for protection orders. For the women standing in that queue, it is a matter of life and death. SA cannot continue failing them.