ZimEye
South African Minister of Women and Child Lulu Xingwane has dismissed the possibility of reinstating the death sentence, describing it ‘as against the democratic values of the country.’
Despite an alarming rate of rape cases in the country for which some organisations have called for the death penalty, Minister Xingwane ruled out capital publishment.
“It is against our ethos of human rights,” she was quoted by News24.
She said the country would not consider castration of rapists as practiced by some other countries.
“We will not do anything that is illegal as government. Well, we believe in human rights of all people and believe the courts are the body that should be given the authority to ensure the law takes its course.”
Xingwane was speaking at the court hearing of the two men accused of the rape and killing of Anene Booysen, 17, who was found at a local construction site on Saturday 2 February in Bregasdorp, near Cape Town.
She had been raped, brutally injured and disembowelled.
South Africa, still dealing with the effects of a violent apartheid past, has one of the highest rape incidences in the world. Violence against women has become normalized. For years there has been a brutal epidemic of rapes and murders on women and children, especially against black lesbian women. The country’s criminal justice system has not been able to deal effectively with this cancer.
With high unemployment rates and poverty levels in most of the country’s black townships, a prison sentence is not such a bad thing as it means free food, accommodation, clothes, health care system among other things, things that don’t come easy in impoverished communities.
The relevant authorities doesn’t seem to have a workable program to curb this crime.
Despite an alarming rate of rape cases in the country for which some organisations have called for the death penalty, Minister Xingwane ruled out capital publishment.
“It is against our ethos of human rights,” she was quoted by News24.
She said the country would not consider castration of rapists as practiced by some other countries.
“We will not do anything that is illegal as government. Well, we believe in human rights of all people and believe the courts are the body that should be given the authority to ensure the law takes its course.”
Xingwane was speaking at the court hearing of the two men accused of the rape and killing of Anene Booysen, 17, who was found at a local construction site on Saturday 2 February in Bregasdorp, near Cape Town.
She had been raped, brutally injured and disembowelled.
South Africa, still dealing with the effects of a violent apartheid past, has one of the highest rape incidences in the world. Violence against women has become normalized. For years there has been a brutal epidemic of rapes and murders on women and children, especially against black lesbian women. The country’s criminal justice system has not been able to deal effectively with this cancer.
With high unemployment rates and poverty levels in most of the country’s black townships, a prison sentence is not such a bad thing as it means free food, accommodation, clothes, health care system among other things, things that don’t come easy in impoverished communities.
The relevant authorities doesn’t seem to have a workable program to curb this crime.
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