New sexual assault care centre opened
More than 70 percent of the sexual assault cases reported at the Mitchell’s Plain Thuthuzela Care Centre in the last month have been children.
Mitchell’s Plain Thuthuzela Care Centre (TCC) site coordinator Sacha Paulse speaking to deputy minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Andries Nel during a tour of the centre on Monday August 19 said they had received 29 cases and that 21 of them were children.
She explained that every case pertaining to a child was pursued with a case being investigated.
The TTC is a one-stop facility based at Mitchell’s Plain District Hospital where victims of rape and sexual assault can report, be examined and counselled.
The 65th centre in the country was launched in Lentegeur on Monday August 19.
National director of public prosecutions advocate Shamila Batohi said TCCs were critical in increasing the number of rape and sexual assault convictions.
She said the criminal justice system could not solve gender-based violence and femicide alone.
Ms Batohi said longer sentences were not a deterrent.
“It’s got to be social development, the religious fraternity infusing values and the building of crèches for mothers to leave their children because often children are abused because they are left in the care of somebody else, a neighbour, a friend, which is when the abuse happens.
“We need to find a way to support women and make it less easy for people to vicitimise children.
“It is a real issue,” she said.
Ms Bahoti said statistics showed that 50 percent of the perpetrators were known to the victims and that these matters should be reported.
Mohamed Motala, director of Networking HIV and AIDS Community of Southern Africa (NACOSA), said community programmes with innovative ways to reach men.
“We will offer them a free haircut but then they have to sit and listen to what we have to offer,” he said.
He said 80 percent of their budget was used in prevention programmes, including school programmes with the Department of Education where they work on comprehensive sexuality education.
Mr Motala said the modular building on the hospital premises was brought to the site and that Nacosa had been instrumental in setting up the building and rolling out the TCC model.
Mitchell’s Plain district hospital chief executive officer Evan Swart the fire in 2012 which destroyed the original TCC was a blessing in disguise.
“Now they have a dedicated building with all of these services to assist the most vulnerable of our community,” he said.
Advocate Bonnie Currie-Gamwo, special director of public prosecutions’s sexual offences and community affairs (SOCA) unit, said often women were hesitant to report matters because often the perpetrators were the breadwinners.
She thanked the Spar Group for sponsoring groceries to TCCs, which they can handover to victims and give back their dignity.
“We cannot speak to a victim who is hungry. It is giving them that dignity back,” she said.
Ms Currie-Gamwo said the retailer had gone the extra mile in marketing the TCC and the NPA on its packaging and advocating for the end to gender-based violence.
The launch focused on public and private partnerships and the linking of resources amongst local, provincial and national government departments as well as civil society.
Ms Currie-Gamwo, special director of public prosecutions’s sexual offences and community affairs (SOCA) unit, said they want the community to know that “help is at hand”.
She also called on the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to have court audio-visual (CAB) linkages from the centre to the courtroom.
“It far better to testify from a TCC than to have walk up the steps of a court and to face the perpetrator or that family of the perpetrator. So we are hoping that will become a reality soon,” she said.
Ms Currie-Gamwo called on religious leaders to visit the facility to better understand its services so they can spread the message to their parishioners.
“You can’t empower the people you have influence over if you do not understand the model,” she said.
Pastor Adrian Paris and his wife paster Natasha, from Strandfontein Assemblies of God, spoke of one of their pregnant parishioner’s who was assaulted and violated.
This happened months ago before the opening of the Mitchell’s Plain TCC on Monday July 8.
The pastors said the woman was sent to Mitchell’s Plain police station, to Strandfontein police station, to Victoria Hospital, in Wynberg and had been misdiagnosed by a doctor.
Pastor Natasha thanked the various people who helped them including Strandfontein community police forum chairwoman Sandy Schuter-Flowers and Dr Genine Josias, a clinical florensic doctor at TCCs.
She said it was by God’s grace that the woman was cared for and that she and her child are alive.
Ms Currie-Gamwo also pleaded with those present at the launch to continue to rally against gender-based violence.
