DA: Attend to CPU shortages

2003-12-23 17:56

Cape Town - The Democratic Alliance on Tuesday repeated its call for urgent attention to be given to the under-resourced police child protection units (CPUs) around the country.

According to a recent answer to a parliamentary question, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said 1 231 children under five were reported raped between February 2002 and January 2003, DA acting leader Douglas Gibson said in a statement.

"These horrific rapists need to be caught, convicted and then put away for a very long time. For this, we rely on the CPUs," he said.

In a report compiled earlier this year by the DA after visits to all 46 CPU's, the DA found that these units were 48% understaffed, and that officers had a caseload on average 3.5 times greater than optimal - some more than five times.

Training

In addition, 53% of officers at these specialised units had received no training in child protection.

"Some units had no officers with the necessary training. On top of this, these officers have to make do with shortages of office space, telephones, radios and vehicles. Is it any wonder that the state only achieves a conviction rate of about eight percent?"

While Nqakula did respond to the DA's report by increasing operational expenditure for these units by 30% and providing for new units in the Western Cape and Limpopo, this did not go far enough, Gibson said.

Child abuse had been identified by the government as a priority crime. As such, it should receive priority attention.

Vacant posts of police officers at all CPU's, of social workers and those working at the forensic laboratories should be declared scarce skills so that all posts could be filled.

The training of magistrates and prosecutors who dealt with children should be accelerated, an immediate needs analysis at Sexual Offences Courts undertaken and the health department should also undertake to accelerate its training of doctors in conducting forensic examinations of children.

State hospitals had to be able to prioritise child rape and abuse cases to maximise the conviction rate of child rapists through the efficient and effective collection of evidence, and to minimise the trauma suffered by their victims.

"Protection from these heinous crimes is the very least we can give our children this Christmas," Gibson said.

- SAPA