Report contains crime shocker

Last Thursday’s released Hate and Bias Crimes Monitoring Form Project report into hate crimes and discrimination in South Africa, that revisited occurrences in five provinces over a five-year period, contains shocking statistics revealing that 7% of offenders in such cases allegedly were Police officers and a further 4% public officials.
Also 7% of cases of hate and bias crimes, contributing to incidents varying from murder to Police brutality across the country, were committed in Limpopo. The report rate, as indicated in the 30-page report, was much lower than in the four other provinces monitored in terms of the geographic scope, being Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern and Western Cape that ranged between 14 and 27%.
Described as by far the most in-depth view of hate crimes in South Africa to date and based on content gathered from 945 of 1 061 cases retained for analysis, its insights are considered to come at a crucial time in the development of hate crimes and hate speech legislation.
The Hate Crimes Working Group, a multi-sectoral network of civil society organisations that cover a cross-section of vulnerable sectors and people at risk of becoming victims of prejudice-motivated attacks, collaboratively developed the Hate and Bias Crime Monitoring Form following a four-year period of extensive consultation beginning in 2009.
The monitoring form was subsequently used in a five-year longitudinal research study in the five provinces from 2013 to 2017 to gauge the types, nature and impact of hate crimes perpetrated against individuals and communities in those provinces.
For research purposes data was collected from case files, face-to-face interviews with victims, third party recollections, media reports and witness accounts.
Polokwane Observer was mentioned among participating organisations that contributed cases, for two of its editorial team members were among those interviewed on an incident in down town Polokwane on 28 March last year when they were attacked at a time of heightened violent crimes allegedly targeting foreigners.
Other organisations in the province participating by contributing cases to the project were the South African Human Rights Commission in Polokwane, the Commission for Gender Equality in Polokwane, Limpopo Pride LGBTI, Future Families Thohoyandou, Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme and Vhembe District Victim Empowerment Network.
In a breakdown of offender profiles the report, that focusses on the period January 2013 to September last year simultaneously reflects that 2% of offenders of crime-related incidents across the five provinces during that time were alleged to have been school or college staff and 1% medical professionals.
The authors of the report continue to suggest that Police were being reported as accomplices to the crimes in 66 cases. “Additionally, in 20% of all the cases the Police witnessed the crime (such as mass looting(s) of shops); in 22 of these cases they did not provide any assistance.”
At the same time the authors pointed at the disconcerting fact that there were still some school teachers and principals, Police officers and healthcare providers who discriminated against certain persons who sought their services. “Equally disheartening is the finding that the hate crime element is almost entirely disregarded in court proceedings – a finding that once again underscores the need for legislation on hate crime for the purpose of holding authority figures accountable, and to enable fair retribution for these crimes.
“Though limited in scope, these findings confirm that hatred and hate crime is prevalent in South Africa. Moreover it is associated with unimaginable disdain for human life.”
It was pointed out that 66% of cases were not reported to the Police, the reasons including incidents not being classified as criminal matters such as issues of intentional unfair discrimination, fear of retribution or of further victimisation, fear of being arrested in the case of undocumented non-nationals and sex workers, lack of trust in the Police due to previous negative experiences and perpetrators being or including Police officers.
According to the report the victims’ ages varied between 0 and 81 years. Less than half of the victims (42%) were identified as South African-born. It was stated that almost 60% was black or African, a further 15% of Ethiopian, Somalian or Eritrean origins, with 10% being white, 7% being Asians comprising of non-nationals from Asian countries, 4% coloured and 1% South Africans of Indian descent. It seemed that most of the victims (64%) self-identified as being men, 28% as women, 8% as being trans-women and two victims as being trans-men.
Although 65% of attacks (against individuals) were committed against only one victim, some cases involved more than one victim: 125 cases involved two victims; 72 cases involved three victims and 35 cases involved more than six victims.
Thus even though only 669 cases that involved persons (as opposed to organisations or whole sectors of society) were recorded, at least 1 113 individual victims were directly affected.
Robbery and theft measured as most frequent of the crimes at 30%, followed by damage to property at 27%, illegal eviction at 17% and assault at 14%, followed by threats with weapons at 12% and assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm at 11%. Murder, attempted murder and rape made for a frequency of 4%, sexual assault at 2%, extortion or blackmail as well as Police brutality at 1% respectively and arson the lowest at 0,8%.
A breakdown of hate speech-related incidents split up the frequency of incidents between intimidation at 34%, hate speech at 24%, harassment at 22% and defamation of character or harm to dignity at 11%.
Hate and Bias Crimes Monitoring Form Project Leader Juan Nel drew attention to the signing of a petition aimed at urging South African authorities to stop stalling and push forward the country’s hate crimes bill.
Interested parties can visit https://go.allout.org/en/a/south-africa-bill.

Story: YOLANDE NEL
>>observer.yolande@gmail.com