Please find attached soundbite by Samantha Graham-Maré MP.
Recent statistics show that SAPS has recorded 50,511 victims of Gender Based Violence in the 2025/26 financial year. The figures are beyond statistics. It is a roll call of daughters, mothers, sisters, and friends assaulted, beaten, raped, or murdered in a single financial year. And those are only the ones we know about and those brave enough to report it.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will as part of our GBV Task Group undertake an unannounced oversight blitz of every Thuthuzela Care Centre across the country to expose the systemic failures that deny survivors justice, and write to the Ministers of Police, Justice, and Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities demanding a detailed breakdown of exactly how funds have been reprioritised in line with the National Crisis declaration, and why, nearly a year later, we have not seen a demonstrable shift in resources to the frontline.
A concerning reality shows that even when victims do report GBV cases, only 61% of cases result in an arrest or referral to the National Prosecuting Authority.
In November 2025, the government declared GBVF a national crisis in November 2025, it was a moment of hope. A promise that this crisis would be treated with the urgency it deserves. Almost a year later, practically nothing has changed.
Case numbers remain stubbornly high, while specialised Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offences units are severely underfunded, the system continues to fail women and children at every turn.
Police statistics capture the end of the tragedy, long after the violence has already happened. If we are serious about ending GBVF, we must confront what fuels this pandemic, namely, generational poverty that traps women in abusive homes, structural inequality that leaves them without escape routes, substance abuse that ignites violence, and social support systems that are barely functioning.
Declaring a crisis without addressing its roots is not leadership. It is performance.
The DA will fight for faster arrests and tougher sentences. But we will also fight for prevention in our schools, our communities, and our economic policies.
To the women of South Africa, we see you. We will find where the system is failing. And we will not rest until it is fixed