Statement by Lisa Schickerling MP – DA Spokesperson on Police:
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is outraged by the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) admission that 837 rape cases were closed over the past three financial years because victims could not be traced.
These are not administrative files. Each docket represents a victim and a justice process that appears to have been abandoned.
Even more concerning is that the SAPS’ own figures do not align. In the same parliamentary reply, SAPS states that 781 cases were withdrawn and 105 were undetected, a total of 886 cases, not 837. This 49-case discrepancy raises serious questions about the reliability of SAPS’ reporting.
The SAPS also claims that none of these cases involved incorrect or incomplete recording of victims’ contact details, and that no consequence management was required. This is difficult to accept given the scale of cases where victims were allegedly “untraceable”.
In a country facing a severe gender-based violence crisis, closing rape cases because victims cannot be traced is not a minor procedural issue, it points to deeper failures in case management, victim follow-up, and accountability.
The DA believes the SAPS must clearly account for what steps were taken before these cases were closed. Were contact details verified? Were families traced? Were victim support services and prosecutors involved? Without these answers, the public cannot have confidence in the system.
Equally troubling is that not a single official has been held accountable. This reflects a culture where failure carries no consequence even in cases involving serious violent crimes.
The DA calls for:
- An independent audit of all rape cases closed due to “untraceable victims”
- A full review of victim contact and case management systems within SAPS
- Immediate consequence management where negligence or misconduct is identified
- Strengthened victim support services to ensure survivors remain engaged in the justice process
- Improved detective capacity and oversight in handling sexual offences
South Africa cannot claim to be serious about tackling gender-based violence while cases are quietly closed and accountability is absent. Justice for victims requires proper case management, accurate reporting, and real consequences when the system fails.
The DA will continue to hold the SAPS accountable and fight for a criminal justice system that prioritises victims, delivers justice, and restores public trust.
Cricket
I cannot see a comment section underneath a page on MyZA that I really find benefit from – https://myza.co.za/sa-news-headlines/ – so wanted to post a thank you here under this article if you do not mind at all. Iff my thank you is not appropriate please do delete, I will not be offended.
Wild Hair
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.