Cele warns police against turning away Gender-Based Violence victims

Bheki Cele says police should not tell women to go back home and negotiate with their abusers.

Police Minister Bheki Cele has sent a strong warning to law enforcement officials not to turn away women who claim to be facing Gender-Based Violence.

Cele was speaking during his visit to Bloemfontein as part of the festive season’s Operation Tight Safer inspection. Police Minister, Bheki Cele & his deputy Cassel Mathale have arrived in Bloemfontein to monitor police festive season operations and compliance to lockdown protocols. They are expected to visit taxi ranks and malls to engage with communities.

He says SAPS members should not tell women to go back home and negotiate with their abusers. “When a woman comes to report at the police station, there should be not a single member of the SAPS that will tell that woman to go home and negotiate.

You are not negotiators.

Any man who abuses a woman is not a man, he is a half-man. You don’t tell that woman to go home to negotiate. She will come back for a second time to say ‘but I can’t stay at home, this person kicks me around.’ She won’t come back for a third time because she will be dead.”