Johannesburg - Police Minister Bheki Cele has welcomed heavy jail sentences handed out to perpetrators of gender-based violence (GBV) around the country.
President Cyril Ramaphosa recently proclaimed that GBV had become a second pandemic. He stated that acts of violence had made people doubt the very foundation of South Africa’s democratic society, commitment to human rights and human dignity, to equality, to peace and to justice.
Most recently, two life sentences were handed down to Lungile Nxelelwa for the rape and murder of his girlfriend, Keneilwe Pule. Nxelelwa was convicted by the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court for brutally raping and killing Pule before setting her body alight.
In the Eastern Cape, a hefty jail term handed down by the Grahamstown High Court to Siyabulela Satyo Mnkayo has also been welcomed by the minister. For his two-year reign of terror on unsuspecting women in Alexandria from 2012, Mnkayo pleaded guilty to 15 counts of rape and robbery with aggravated circumstances.
Police positively linked the accused to the crimes by DNA evidence and he was also later connected to other cold rape cases. He was sentenced to four life terms and 125 years imprisonment on Monday.
In the first week of February, a Pretoria couple were also sentenced to two double life sentences for the rape and abuse of their two minor children, a 5-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy, in 2014.
Police investigations found that the parents performed gory sexual acts on the children, and forced them to commit sexual acts on the parents and each other.
The couple, a 39-year-old man and 33-year-old woman, were found guilty of rape, compelled rape, sexual assault, sexual grooming, flashing, child neglect and possession of drugs.
In Mpumalanga, a double life sentence was handed to Sibusiso Charles Kabini on January 30 by the KwaMhlanga Regional Court.
According to details revealed in court, the 26-year-old waited for his victims behind a local shopping mall at KwaMhlanga, and at knifepoint he would rape and rob them of their personal belongings. In one incident, he raped a woman in front of her 5-year-old child while the pair were on their way to a local clinic.
On January 25, a 40-year-old man was handed a life sentence in the Free State for the rape of a 5-year-old girl in Chakaville, Petrusburg. On her way home from a local tuck shop, the little girl was lured by the perpetrator to his house and raped.
Thabiso Mzoboshe, was traced and arrested by police when the victim shared her ordeal with here mother.
The Star