Cape Town - Civil organisations are campaigning
to have the government open more
sexual offence courts in Western Cape
due to the increase of sexual violence
cases and the hostility that victims
of sexual violence experience in the
criminal justice system process.
Rape Crisis advocacy co-ordinator Jeanne Bodenstein said that the organisation had asked the Department of Justice, at a national and provincial level, to establish a sexual offences court at the Khayelitsha Magistrate's Court as soon as possible because of the high volume of sexual offence cases in the area.
Statistics have shown that there were 216 sexual offence cases and 156 rape cases opened at police stations in Khayelitsha in 2018.
Bodenstein said: “Victims often struggle at different stages of the criminal justice system process. They aren't treated sensitively enough when opening a case at the police station, therefore they choose not to engage in the system because of the stigma attached, and also because the entire process is intimidating.
“We believe that sexual offences courts will reduce secondary trauma, make sure that cases proceed through the justice system and restore faith in the criminal justice system.”
Between January and May this year there were 1974 sexual offence cases from across the Western Cape reported to Rape Crisis.
Ilitha labantu spokesperson Siyabulela Monakali said: “Implementation of sexual offence courts will show that there is a level of seriousness when it comes to addressing rape and sexual issues. Hopefully this will also result in an improvement with the prosecution rate of sexual offenders.”
Monakali said it was not easy for any victim to go to court, especially those who have been through sexual abuse. Sexual offences courts can give survivors more hope because a court focusing specifically on rape victims can allow the process to be more proactive, she said.
Bodenstein said that if the government wanted to hear the plight of rape survivors then it needed to make sure a budget was put aside for sexual offence courts.
“For a long time, the Khayelitsha court has had poor infrastructure, where a rape victim would have to walk past a perpetrator when going into court. After intense intervening we managed to get improved infrastructure at the court earlier this year,” said Bodenstein.
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