South Africa records 72.4 % increase in rape cases between April-June

Johannesburg: South Africa records 72.4 per cent increase in rape cases between April and June this year as 10,006 rape cases were registered during this period, according to official statistics.

"An increase of 4,201 cases recorded amounting to a 72.4 per cent increase, compared to the skewed previous reporting period," Xinhua news agency quoted Police Minister Bheki Cele as saying on Friday.

He said that comparing the two periods would leave the statistics distorted because of the hard lockdown in 2020, which severely restricted freedoms and movement, resulting in less crime.

According to the statistics, if the latest figures are compared with the same period in 2019, there has been a 2.8 per cent increase in raping.

Cele told the media that a sample of 5,439 rape cases showed that 3,766 of the incidents happened at the home of the victim or the home of the rapist, while 487 cases were domestic violence-related.

The statistics revealed the Inanda police station in KwaZulu-Natal, followed by Delft in the Western Cape and Lusikisiki station in the Eastern Cape registering the highest number of rape cases in the country.

Between April and June, 5,760 people were killed during the same period.

This represented a 66.2 per cent increase in murder compared with the same period in 2020, or 6.7 per cent if compared with the first quarter in 2019.

Cele said more than 2,500 people were killed in public spaces including open fields, parking areas, and abandoned buildings.

More than 1,300 killings took place at the home of the victim.

Gender expert Lisa Vetten said the figures revealed an increase in violent crimes. She said while the police could do a lot of work to prevent serial rapes, preventing rapes in homes was more complicated.

She said issues with DNA forensic laboratories must be sorted out.

"It's really worrying that there's been an increase in violent crimes," she told Xinhua.

Commenting on the stats, Javu Baloyi, spokesperson at the Commission for Gender Equality told Xinhua that the crime report was horrifying.

"These are alarming, we were hoping that the numbers would go down," he said, adding that the police should "prioritise" gender-based violence.