At today’s DA Western Cape Digicon, MPLs Reagen Allen and Gillion Bosman revealed that 36,647 sexual offence cases are outstanding in the Western Cape due to the backlog of DNA specimens not processed at SAPS Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL). This number does not necessarily reflect all cases of Gender-Based Violence, as SAPS at a national level has not provided an official crime reporting category for GBV despite the President’s alleged commitment to end the scourge.
While promises are made on tackling Gender-Based Violence, this too often lacks the will or the ability to implement and administer simple, yet important solutions. This in turn holds devastating consequences for victims of the GBV pandemic.
MPP Gillion Bosman said: “I have submitted a dossier to the President’s National Council on Gender-Based Violence which outlines the status of GBV in the Western Cape and the enormous backlog of DNA cases related to GBV at the SAPS Forensic Science Laboratory. Our request is that the Council facilitate the collaboration of SAPS with the private sector to outsource DNA processing so that the backlog is eradicated as an urgent priority. This is well within the mandate of the Gender-Based Violence and Femicide National Strategic Plan.
Following an oversight visit to SAPS FSL and subsequent parliamentary questions, we have come to learn that it will take at least 18 months to eradicate the backlogged cases. Victims of Gender-Based Violence and Femicide have suffered enough, but the centralised process in Pretoria delays and denies justice even longer for them and their families. This is a result of SAPS’s failure to secure a tender process that would allow the DNA analysis machines and related equipment to be serviced. Instead, we have a situation where many machines have been out of service for over 1,200 days.
GBV survivors violence witness their perpetrators roam free, without convictions. This is now attributed to the chaos in the management of processing of DNA samples which acts as leads on serious crimes such as sexual offences. The chaos in the system jeopardises the prevalence of justice for so many, and as it stands, a vast number of GBV cases already go unreported. The incapacity to handle these cases will only worsen these statistics.”
The current state of a growing DNA backlog stems from gross mismanagement in both the contract and supply chain management. This continues unabated.
MPP Reagen Allen adds: “Previously, the processing backlog of DNA samples had exploded by a 300% increase and it was already then clear that solving GBV cases in particular are severely undermined. And so, on the 5th of September, Gender Based Violence in relation to the backlog in processing DNA at Forensic Science Laboratories was recognised as a Policing Need and Priority (PNP) by the Western Cape Provincial Executive.
This is reflected in the latest PNP report, tabled by the Western Cape Government’s Department of Community Safety in our legislature this week. As the DA, we support this important step and urge Minister Bheki Cele to actually live up to the Constitutional requirement that he include PNP recommendations in policing policy for our province.
Provincial Executives determine PNPs, and in our province this is done in collaboration with safety structures as well as with parliamentary portfolio committees and local authorities on policing, in order to inform the national policing policy and station operation plans in the Western Cape. PNP-reports cover the policing plights of all, but with particular concern for vulnerable communities. It is yet another measure undertaken by the provincial government to ensure our specific safety needs are taken into account by national government. We will continue to exhaust all oversight measures on policing inefficiencies in the Western Cape, but time has now expired for national government to act decisively.”
We believe that to achieve a safe society, we must start by prioritising women’s rights and dignity – and by effecting substantive change to this end.
