Deputy Minister of Police Dr Polly Boshielo leads GBVF March

Deputy Minister of Police Dr Polly Boshielo together with Limpopo MEC for Transport and Community Safety Ms Susani Violet Mathye and the South African Police Service (SAPS) management led a peaceful Gender Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) march in Thohoyandou, Vhembe District on Friday 23 March.

The Vhembe district is leading with statistics on GBVF cases, which called for awareness in the district. More married men are part of statistics of offenders who feel entitled to their spouses’ body without consent.

To raise more awareness on identifying root causes that leads to GBVF, convicted rapist and now GBV ambassador Nemudzivhadi Oscar Mmbangiseni shared how he became a rapist as a husband and father. He was arrested in 2017 after having sexual intercourse with his wife whom they stayed together.

“I worked for the University of Pretoria and came home every weekend; I heard rumors that my wife was cheating on me, one weekend we had a fight over that. After the fight I wanted my conjugal rights and she refused, but I felt entitled because she is my wife and mother of my 4 children.”
Upon his return to work, he received a call that his wife had opened a rape case against him, Oscar drove back to Limpopo to hand himself to the police where he was kept on custody for 13 months of the trial and, was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in March 2018.

He has served 5 years of his sentence and is currently a parolee who works as a motivational speaker at Yingwani High School as part of his community service.

“When I was arrested, my children were between the ages of 18 and 4 years, I missed out on a very crucial stage of being a father to a toddler and teenager. My first-born child is studying medicine at MEDUNSA, I have continuous chat with him about circumstances that led me to prison. I don’t want my kids to make mistakes I made and ruin their lives because they think having a girlfriend or wife gives you the right to sleep with them without their consent. When a woman says no and you proceed even if you are not violent, you have raped.”

Oscar’s lived experience motivates him to visit high schools where teenage boys need awareness about sexual consent. He works with different structures that involves teenagers and married men.

During her keynote address, Dr Boshielo informed attendees that boy children are now forming part of rape victims which paints a picture that rape does not chose gender and this is the reason President Ramaphosa has declared GBVF a pandemic.

Ramaphosa has declared 90 days against GBVF as part of the programme to fight GBVF. To implement strategics to curb the pandemic, SAPS has partnered with the Department of Education and Social Development, this will see more social workers deployed at police stations to counsel victims.

In the 4th quarter crime report, 5 871 GBVF related crimes were reported with a total of 720 accused persons being convicted and sentenced. 93 offenders were handed out combined life sentences and 95 were convicted for more than 20 years in prison while 341 accused were convicted for 1 to 4 years. A total of 2 843 offenders are serving sentence for rape cases. EC