Who and what is AfriForum?

AfriForum is an Afrikaans civil rights organisation that protects the rights of minority groups at national as well as provincial level, and anyone who can identify with AfriForum’s principles and objectives may join the organisation. AfriForum’s community plan focuses on mobilising communities to thus take control of their own streets and neighbourhoods again. AfriForum ensures that your constitutional and civil rights are recognised and protected at national level.

Wie en wat is AfriForum?

AfriForum is ’n Afrikaanse burgerregteorganisasie wat die regte van minderheidsgroepe op sowel nasionale as provinsiale vlak beskerm, en enigiemand wat met AfriForum se beginsels en doelstellings kan identifiseer, mag by die organisasie aansluit. AfriForum se gemeenskapsplan fokus daarop om gemeenskappe te mobiliseer om só weer beheer terug te neem oor hul eie strate en woonbuurtes. AfriForum verseker dat jou grondwetlike én burgerregte op nasionale vlak erken en beskerm word.

AfriForum backs GBV victim after police allegedly bury assault docket

Soundbite: Emmah Mailula

A fed-up victim of gender-based violence (GBV) has filed criminal charges of defeating the ends of justice against the two police officers who allegedly closed her assault case without investigating it. Emmah Mailula, represented by AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit, filed the complaint at the Mamelodi East Police Staton today, the same police station where she opened a case of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) in April earlier this year.

On 11 April 2026, Mailula was allegedly assaulted at her residence in Mamelodi, sustaining serious facial injuries, and subsequently reported the case to the police. However, on 30 April, she received an SMS from SAPS informing her that the Senior Public Prosecutor at the Mamelodi Magistrates’ Court had declined to prosecute and that the case docket had been closed. Unhappy with the decision, Mailula visited the court and Mamelodi East police station in an attempt to establish the whereabouts of the docket, receiving conflicting information from officials. On 5 May, a control prosecutor told her that the case should not have been closed and undertook to provide further feedback. However, no further communication was received.

It was then that she approached the unit. “In light of the alleged failures within the criminal justice system that have been brought to the public’s attention, including matters considered by the Madlanga Commission, I lost confidence in the manner in which the SAPS was handling my matter. I consequently gave the AfriForum Private Prosecutions Unit the mandate to act on my behalf and intervene in the matter,” she states in her affidavit.

The unit wrote to the Senior Public Prosecutor at the Mamelodi Magistrates Court, who later confirmed that the NPA had not declined to prosecute the matter. Instead, the prosecutor had instructed the investigating officer on 22 April to conduct further investigations. However, while the investigating officer was attending a three-month training course, another police officer requested that a Colonel close the docket. The Colonel subsequently endorsed the docket as “withdrawn”, resulting in it being placed in storage at SAPS Mamelodi East.

Barry Bateman, spokesperson for the unit, says: “The SAPS had no authority to withdraw the matter, as this decision rests exclusively with the National Prosecuting Authority. The closure of the docket, despite the NPA’s instructions to investigate the matter further, could constitute defeating the ends of justice and fraud. AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit has successfully prosecuted three gender-based violence cases, including a rape, in which the police similarly showed no interest in investigating the complaints. Consider the thousands of other victims whom the police turn away, or whose cases they neglect to investigate, ultimately denying them justice and allowing perpetrators to escape accountability,”

“It is precisely matters like these that prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to announce the grand audit and recovery plan, with deadlines and tasks for officials across the criminal justice system. However, these gender-based violence cases, at the frontline of the police’s engagement with the public, are so prevalent that they speak to the collapse of the criminal justice system,” said Bateman.

Outside the police station, after filing the complaint, Mailula said she felt failed by the criminal justice system. “They disappointed me. They let me down because I opened a case, but it was standing still. No feedback, nothing. So I ended up coming to AfriForum to get the justice that I needed,” she said.

Mailula added that, regrettably, she is not alone. “I’m so ashamed of the South African police because they are not taking GBV seriously. Each and every day, there’s a woman who is dying because, most of the time, women come to the police station to open cases, but their cases just end up being closed.

“So, I’m disappointed and ashamed to say that if I have a problem in the near future, I don’t know if I will have the confidence to go to a police station and open a case because they are not ready to help us as women of South Africa. I’m very disappointed in them,” she said.

The unit will continue engagements with the SAPS and the NPA to ensure both matters are properly investigated and prosecuted.