Statement from Brett Herron (Western Cape MPL and GOOD Secretary-General)
WESTERN CAPE TRANSPORT DEPT: TEXTBOOK CASE OF REVICTIMISING GBV SURVIVORS
11 March 2021
A senior Western Cape official on trial in the Cape Town Regional Court for sexually assaulting a subordinate remains at his desk, in control of witnesses in the case, while his department seeks to get rid of his alleged victim on the basis that she is incompetent.
After reporting the incident, last October, the severely traumatised woman objected to having to continue working in the same space as the alleged perpetrator. She was offered a post out of town which she could not accept because she lives in Cape Town. So the Department of Transport and Public Works continued to pay her while she stayed at home.
Now the Department is using her trauma to argue that she is no longer competent to do her job.
This week my office met the woman and her husband, who was working in the UAE at the time of the assault. He shared the intense emotional impact of the event on their lives, and their anger at the unfairness of the situation they’re in.
It is a travesty of justice for which the political head of the department, MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, must accept full responsibility. Madikizela is the provincial head of the DA who is presently acting as premier of the province.
Madikizela is well-aware of the matter. This is what he told the Cape Times last October, in a report about the case: “GBV (gender-based violence) is a scourge and a cancer that is bedevilling our country. It is a matter I take very seriously. But at the same time it’s important to create a neutral and safe environment where both parties are given an opportunity to tell their side of the story.”
Earlier, speaking on gender-based violence in the provincial legislature, he said: “Let us start by getting our house in order as Government by protecting victims in our spaces… We have a disturbing culture of sex for jobs, sex for tenders, sex for marks etc.”
What Madikizela says and what his department does are two separate worlds. He should know that gender-based violence is not a political plaything. It demands more from public representatives than flowery speeches and empty promises.
The unfolding situation in his department is a betrayal of women’s constitutional rights to safety and dignity.
If he has any integrity he will immediately place the alleged perpetrator on precautionary suspension pending the conclusion of an internal investigation and the criminal prosecution.
“If we don’t act when it matters, it’s a cold comfort for victims and families,” he told the legislature in 2019.
If he cannot be trusted to act to protect the rights and safety of women in his own department, he should be fired.
Ends…