Activist Ruth Smith assists women who are abused. But she will have to wait till daybreak if she needs police assistance when a victim of gender violence calls on her for help after 4pm.
Until last weekend Smith could walk to the local satellite police station in Noordgesicht, Soweto. When necessary the satellite would call a police van from the Orlando police station, and the victim would receive the help she needed.
However, last week armed robbers pretending to be hijack victims stole Smith’s peace of mind — along with a pistol and an R-5 rifle from the policemen at the satellite station.
As a result, Gauteng police this week past decided that Soweto’s satellite stations — in Noordgesicht, Dube and Lenasia — would close at 4pm.
The police have the support of the South African Police Union, which ”commended the South African Police Service [SAPS] for its swift action” in closing the stations. The union referred to other ”violent attacks” on the satellite stations.
But locals are disappointed, saying the police have skirted the real issue. ”Most of the abuse happens at night,” said Smith. ”But we are an NGO — we don’t have a car to take victims to [Chris Hani]-Baragwanath hospital.”
The decision to close the stations coincides with the SAPS defending its use of private security companies to man some police buildings around the country — and spending millions of rands in the process.
National police spokeperson Selby Bokaba said: ”We employed private security companies in certain police buildings because we realised that the police who were trained to do crime prevention duties were, in fact, doing menial work like access control. We released them to do what they were trained for.”
Bokaba denied that private security guards manned police stations to protect the police members. He said these companies helped control access to the police buildings, in- cluding offices and some stations.
Noordgesicht civic leader Grant Julius says the early closure of the station indicates the government’s lack of commitment to the promises it made to the community.
”They have promised to build a satellite police station since 1999. They said they will revamp the local council on numerous occasions, but nothing has been done.
”What happened last week would not have happened had the government committed more resources to the station. It shows they are not interested in these satellite police stations.”
The station is a 5m by 2m shipping container, which includes a charge office and a holding cell. It has one door and, according to locals, had bulletproof windows installed four years ago after it was vandalised during an anti-rent uprising.
South African Police Union official Stoney Steenkamp said the union supports the early closure because it wants to pressure police management into committing resources to the satellite stations.
”Early last year criminals entered a police station in Groblersdaal in the Northern Cape. They even handcuffed the policemen and stole all the weapons at the station.
”That is a scenario that will continue where weapons go back into the hands of the criminals,” said Steenkamp.