Minister Albert Fritz shocked and appalled: GBV continues, unabated

On 25 April 2021 Minister of Community Safety, Albert Fritz, expressed his concern once again at the unacceptable proliferation of gender-based violence. 

Over the past few weeks, a number of members of the LGBTQI+ community have been attacked and killed across the country. Locally, Lonwabo Jack’s body was found with stab wounds in a pool of blood in Mau-Mau, Nyanga East. He was just 22 years of age. 

Minister Fritz said, “Events like this shake me to the core because, as far as I am concerned, these are hate crimes, and it makes me ask serious questions about the ills which are plaguing our society, against which we as a people seem to make little headway.” 

According to SAPS, an investigation is currently underway to determine the extent of the crime. This comes in the wake of Minister Fritz’s calls for more efficiency in the processing of DNA samples at the National Forensic Sciences Laboratory.

Minister Fritz continued, “When we speak of gender-based violence, we include all of those who suffer violence and even death because of societal reactions and perceptions around gender. This therefore includes people like Lonwabo, who suffered this gruesome death on his birthday. Nobody deserves that. And I am not going to rest until we see a drastic reduction in gender-based violence.”

Minister Fritz has indicated that he will write to the GBV Desk at the Court Watching Brief Unit to ask them to follow this and other GBV cases which do not receive the necessary scrutiny and public focus they deserve. 

“From time to time we see cases driving national conversations – and this is good when it happens; it’s right that gender-based violence is discussed. But in between those publicised cases, thousands of victims suffer gender-based violence at the hands of cruel perpetrators, and most times these cases go completely unnoticed. Too many of those cases fall through the cracks. And not enough of them receive the attention they need, and the justice they deserve.

“I’m going to be consistent in bringing these issues to the fore,” Fritz concluded. “We need to eradicate gender-based violence from our society.”