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.

President’s GBV recovery plan exposes years of basic policing failures

Soundbite: Barry Bateman (English)

Despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s grand gender-based violence “audit and recovery” plan, AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit has already exposed how police failures have allowed alleged rapists, murderers, and child abusers to roam free for years, with no apparent attempts to trace and arrest them. The unit raised these failures in correspondence sent to Acting National Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Puleng Dimpane, on 28 September, just one day before President Ramaphosa addressed the nation.

The correspondence was a follow up to the letter sent to the Police Ministry and South African Police Service (SAPS) management on 19 May 2026, and Dimpane’s response on 22 June 2026. The unit sought answers in six cases, which included four cases of gender-based violence (GBV), where suspects had been on the run for as long as five years. In almost every response to the cases raised in the correspondence, Dimpane stated that “suspect was circulated, and the docket was handed over to the tracing unit,” “the suspect is still being circulated until he is arrested,” and “the accused was circulated as wanted.”

Adv. Gerrie Nel, head of the unit, says this appears to be an attempt to create the impression that something is being done, while the cases gather dust. “This repeated reliance on the word ‘circulated’ appears to have become a mechanism through which investigating officers can avoid accountability by moving a docket off their desks. Once referred to a tracing unit, the matter effectively becomes somebody else’s problem. What is conspicuously absent, however, is any meaningful account of what investigative steps were actually undertaken thereafter and the failure to provide the victims of regular status reports. Especially in matters like these where the victims are willing to assist law enforcement in ensuring that justice is done,” says Nel.

Nel referred to the case of Mbongiseni Welcome Zwane, the suspect in the Cleveland matter, who allegedly raped his ex-girlfriend before returning a week later and attempting to murder her. He has been on the run since 2021. Police say they traced his vehicle to his brother in Newcastle, but that appears to be as far as the investigation went. “There remains a very real risk that this suspect may commit further acts of rape, violence, or attempted murder. The fact that he has remained at large for approximately five years, despite being a known suspect in serious offences, is deeply concerning. The SAPS cannot reasonably regard the mere circulation of a warrant or the referral of a matter to a tracing unit as a satisfactory discharge of its constitutional and statutory responsibilities,” says Nel.

Among the President’s plans are for the authorities to identify cases in which suspects have been identified but not arrested and then implement recovery plans for priority cases and cases that have stalled.

Barry Bateman, spokesperson for the unit, says the unit is not demanding that these matters receive preferential or extraordinary treatment. “We merely request that they receive the most basic level of investigation and attention to which every victim of crime is entitled. They require detectives to apply the fundamentals of police work: to take complaints seriously, follow up on available information, investigate obvious leads, trace known suspects, execute warrants, and ensure that accused persons are brought before a court so that the criminal justice process can commence.

“The President’s audit and recovery plan is tantamount to an admission that the police are either incapable of performing these basic functions or have abandoned their duty to do so. Either way, this is precisely why gender-based violence is out of control. If the police are serious about implementing the so-called reset agenda, they must act urgently on the list of wanted alleged rapists, murderers and child abusers provided by AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit,” says Bateman.

In almost all the identified cases, the unit and the victims have provided police with information that could assist in tracing the suspects, yet this information has either been ignored or not acted upon. AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit will continue to hold the SAPS accountable and pressure them to ensure that these victims are not forgotten in their pursuit of justice.