Johannesburg - With the fourth quarter crime statistics pointing towards a major increase in attacks on women and children in the first three months of the year, ensuring quicker response times by the police and educating women about what constitutes gender-based violence remains key to addressing the scourge.
It was for this reason that the MEC for Community Safety, Faith Mazibuko, encouraged elderly residents from Mamelodi West to start teaching their children and grandchildren about what constitutes abuse and, most importantly, looking out for one another.
Mazibuko, speaking at an engagement session on gender-based violence with elderly citizens at the Mamelodi West Community Hall yesterday, said what was evident from the recent crime statistics was that women were still vulnerable and under constant attack.
She said getting the message out to communities about the impact of violence and cautioning the elderly from giving out advice such as "a woman always holds the knife by its sharp end" also had to be addressed.
"Times are no longer the same. Now, when you say a woman should hold the knife by its sharp end, you could very well be leading her to her death. So as teachers and advisers, they need to know what abuse is and report it."
"Another reason why gender-based violence continues to thrive is that we simply do not regard certain behaviours or occurrences as abuse; it has become the norm, and many of the elderly do not realise that abuse comes in many different forms."
Notwithstanding educational outreach campaigns, Mazibuko said the provincial government would soon be rolling out e-panic buttons to ensure that vulnerable people, like the elderly, some of whom lived alone, could reach out to the police for help and ensure quicker response times.
She further explained that this would not be a once-off solution, as the stakeholders would also look to measure the performance and response times of the police and other security interventions to ensure criminals were apprehended as and when the incidents were reported.
"We are not only making sure that there are gender-based violence brigades or crime prevention wardens present in communities but also looking at how soon the police are getting help to the people so that we can put a stop to these senseless attacks on women and children."
Elderly residents themselves said they were concerned about the prevalence of drugs and how they exacerbated crimes like robberies, housebreaking, theft, and assault.
The Star