31/05/2021
98% DO NOT FACE JUSTICE - GBV
I was participating online during the Special Parliamentary Committee on Gender Based Violence | Public Inquiry (24th - 25th May) and realised some facts.
Of nearly 15,000 cases each month, only about 300 gets charged. 98% do not face justice - THAT IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM. Two main reasons could be:
1) No evidence compiled within the 3 months - Either Witness does not come through or case gets withdrawn by complainant for whatever reason
2) Police mistakenly (or deliberately) sit on it until the court strikes it out.
Personally, I believe GBV will be minimised or even stopped when the law holds the perpetrators responsible.
Most of the brutal cases are committed by the so called educated or high profile people, when these people easily slip through the claws of law, the pandemic is becoming prevalent. As long as you have money, and can buy your way out of justice, you can do anything. Thats why these people hold up the gun (or whatever) with zero consideration of what they could potentially do with it.
The love of money by law enforcers and treats by perpetrators have become the two most common causes that has resulted in the prevalence of GBV in society.
One way, from my personal point of view, we can hold concerned parties accountable is by doing the following:
1. Come up with a legislation for Gender Based Violence
2. Use a single database for all cases.
3. Build a Permanent Safe House
4. Put more weight on IPOs
5. Redundancy measures
I will briefly explain how each would help.
1 - Legislation for Gender Based Violence.
A legislation is needed to cover everything we want to see being changed and enforced. However I am interested in a few things that needs special consideration. By legislation, any case reported must automatically become the issue of law and the complainants MUST NOT BE GIVEN ANY RIGHT TO WITHDRAW CASES once reported. Settlement outside of court must never be entertained. They must also be required by the legislation to present all evidences and testimonies in time and there must be set penalties for not adhering to it.
Bails must not be given to Sexual Offenders - to prevent tampering of witnesses.
Also, penalties must be clearly outlined for non performance of duties by responsible officers who handle a case. They must be held accountable for not deliberating on a case after assessment of all aspects surrounding the case. This will give them no option but to do their job.
2 - Single Database for All
Whats not monitored does not get done so the GBV legislation must include provisions for a Single Database that records, updates, executes and monitors all case files.
Every time, someone fronts up at the office to lay a complaint, all details must be entered straight to the database. Once the data is saved, every party must receive a copy of the data through the system:
- GBV HQ (general database + all responsible managers)
- Police Department (all responsible officers)
- Station Commanders ( + all responsible officers)
- Committal Court (Chief Magistrate + Deputy responsible)
- COMMITTEE MEMBERS (MADE UP GBV ADVOCATES) - This body should be the watch dog to see all cases go through the necessary legal processes to being about prosecution for Justice to Prevail.
If nothing gets done per case, the system can hold the necessary people accountable depending on where it got stuck.
Do we know how many cases have been reported? How many of them got thorough to committal court? How many cases failed, and why? How many IPOs are current? How many expired and needs renewal? How many IPOs got breached, and why? How many were housed in a safe house, and for our long? These questions will be answered by the database and from there, we can figure out whats wrong, where, and we can try to come up with measures to
3 - Build a Permanent Safe House
Most of the time, cases get withdrawn because the person is either:
- under treat or
- has no where else to go after.
They have no option so end up going back and realising they can not get reliable help anywhere, they linger...sometimes, to the point of ending up in a coffin.
So, we need to build safe houses where they can feel like they have never left anything behind. Say a 20 self-contained Units Apartment equipped with everything so they can continue living while the offender faces the full force of the law.
4. Put more weight on IPOs
Interim Prevention Orders (IPOs) must be given more weight, in terms of penalties for a breach and we must have an IPO breach hotline to attend to them on a 24/7/365 basis with standby resources (vehicle, police, etc) to attend to for prevention measures. For very serious cases, we must give them a device they could use where a breach is suspected. Things such as, A phone with an alert APP. that alerts the IPO hotline when its shaken 3x, or other accessibility options enabled in the App for protection to reach them on time, all the time.
5. Redundancy measures
Most women go back to the offenders because they can not survive out there without the support of the abusive partner. We need to give them options to prevent them from going back to hell. If we have to provide Incubation fund for SMEs that could sustain them (provide for daily needs) etc, provide them basic trainings etc, so that they will find no reason to go back. In that way, we will see many step-out of the current abusive relationships.
Many more things can be done to stop this ongoing - madness!
Decisions with the Next Generation in Mind! 51 for the Future!
Zechariah YAKAP for NORTH-WEST!
#51 - Firelight One
www.zy4nw.net
