On 13 October organisations forming part of the Shukumisa Campaign met with representatives of the police’s specialised amily Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) Units to discuss the future of policing sexual offences in South Africa.
The aim of the workshop was to gain a clear understanding of the challenges facing the FCS Units in South Africa and the NGOs that do work with them, and to develop a provisional roadmap to addressing these constraints. These units, which were previously housed under the South African Police Services were disbanded several years ago.
Raising the bar
In 2006, the South African Police Service began implementing a plan to devolve the services provided by the FCS (Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences) Units from area level to station level. This development was met with opposition from civil society organisation that voiced fears that this would result in the weakening of the services provided by these Units.
RAPCAN sought to test this view, and in July 2007, RAPCAN began a research project to assess how the restructuring had impacted on access to and the quality of services provided by the FCS Units.
The research project gathered data from each province using workshops in each province. Workshops were attended by FCS detectives, other government service providers (such as the National Prosecuting Authority and representatives from provincial Departments of Health and Social Development) as well as a range of non-governmental organisations. The research project also included an analysis of international trends relating to the investigation of the crimes covered by the mandate of the FCS Units.
Download the report, Raising the Bar, which was published in March 2009.
A new look at the issue
Participant included representative from the South African Police Services, the Department of Health, the Department of social services and twenty NGOs from Gauteng, Free State, Western Cape and Limpopo.
The workshop programme included presentations by RAPCAN and Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre on the study their study FCS units, as well an update from SAPS on the issue of re-establishing the units.
Participants also worked to develop a framework of inter-sectoral collaboration, focusing particularly on an enhanced relationship between FCS Units and civil society.
“We are going to produce a report for the Minister of Police [from the proceedings], with our key request being that he include NGOs in consultation around the re-establishment of the FSC Units,” says Lisa Vetten, researcher and policy analyst at the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre to End Violence Against Women. They will be up and running by end March 2011 and it is key that their referral networks with NGOs also be reconstituted, she says.
