Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Lisa Schickerling MP, isiXhosa soundbite by Mlindi Nhanha MP and isiZulu soundbite by Mzamo Billy MP.
The DA has written to Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia demanding that the upcoming crime statistics provide accurate, disaggregated data on crimes against women and children, and that SAPS commit to a firm date for releasing corrected data if it cannot meet the November deadline.
This comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a plan this week to address GBVF, including a funded plan to reduce forensic backlogs and identify the resources required.
But how can government properly allocate resources to fight GBVF when the very crime statistics on which any strategy must be based are inherently wrong?
SAPS admitted to Parliament that its statistics on crimes against women and children are inherently inaccurate, with the data fundamentally flawed and unusable.
The failures include GBV offences being counted more than once, resulting in the number of women and children victims exceeding the total number of victims for certain crimes, including rape. There are also inconsistencies in recording victims’ ages and sexes and in linking victims to the correct charges.
This failure obscures the true scale of the GBVF pandemic, which was declared a national crisis in November 2025. It makes it impossible to measure progress accurately, allocate resources effectively, or hold SAPS accountable.
The DA is therefore calling on the Minister to commit to ensuring that the upcoming crime statistics are accurate and free of these flaws. If SAPS cannot meet the November release date, the Minister must commit to a specific and firm date by which the corrected data will be made available.
We further call for all subsequent crime statistics releases to be prepared in the same accurate and disaggregated manner, so that the country can properly understand the scale of GBVF and measure whether government is making progress.