Patience is more than a virtue for Wendy Adams — it’s what she calls her personal ‘street weaponâ€. Managing a full-time job by day and then enduring the demands of being a single mother of three children by night, she says she knows all there is to know about keeping calm no matter what the scenario.
If it isn’t reining in the more difficult behaviour of her eldest son, 18-year-old Ricardo, it’s the tantrums and tears of four-year-old Michael. The petite 33-year-old cites her children as one of the reasons why she became a ‘weekend warriorâ€. ‘I do it for many reasons, but also for them — to help make the streets safer.â€
On weekends Wendy Adams, loyal receptionist and mother, is Constable Wendy Adams, a police reservist stationed at the Florida Police Station on Johannesburg’s West Rand. It is while on duty doing her ‘night job†that her patience is seriously tested, she says.
Since completing the basic training required of all members of the reserve police force, she has been an ‘A-class†reservist, a member who isn’t confined to working in the charge office, but goes out on patrol. But it isn’t the countless cases of assault, housebreaking and shoplifting that try her patience — it is being called to respond to cases of domestic violence, which she says are a permanent feature of the job.
‘They come every single weekend ever since I started,†she says, but she isn’t complaining about the number of calls she responds to.
‘It’s the attitude of the complainants once you get there, it’s bizarre,†she says. She has arrived at scenes to find a complainant bruised and battered, in some cases even more badly injured, and yet the person has refused to lay charges against the perpetrator.
‘Here we are trying to pin down a clearly aggressive perpetrator, who is swearing and trying to assault us, and the woman is screaming at us not to hurt her man,†says Adams incredulously. ‘They really try one’s patience — there they are bleeding, but taking the man’s side,†she says.
‘We once had a complainant calling for us five times in a single night only to turn us away when we got there.†But despite this, Adams says, she will not dismiss any call for assistance. She acknowledges that it is fear of the consequences of laying a charge that makes many victims react this way.
The good thing about the legislation, says Adams, is that if police witness the abuse, they can lay a criminal charge against a perpetrator on behalf of a victim. In instances where complainants lay charges only to withdraw them later, this is a vital safeguard.
‘Even if she calls 50 times we will come — the next time she might be dead.†It isn’t just her experience as a policewoman that makes Adams finely tuned to the dynamics of domestic abuse — she was once a victim herself.
For close to seven years she endured the fists of an abusive husband and was always reluctant to call the police for help, believing, as do many in similar circumstances, that he would stop one day.
When she eventually left, taking her three children with her, she says it was the intervention of the police that gave her the willpower to turn her back on her marriage. She recalls the day she arrived with a police escort at her former husband’s home to gather her belongings.
‘I wouldn’t have been able to do it myself if they weren’t there for me,†says Adams. The courtesy and compassion shown by those police officers is what she wants to extend to other victims of abuse.
‘I just want to bring some humanity to these people. They’ve already gone through enough trauma without being treated badly by those who are there to help them.â€
Stretching 16 days into a year
This week marked the end of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children campaign. The annual campaign, held from November 25 to December 10, aims to eradicate gender-based violence and violence against minors through awareness campaigns and community education.
One of the objectives of the campaign is to educate citizens about their rights and the legal remedies available, should their rights be violated. The campaign also promotes a greater awareness among the public of the responsibilities and legal obligations of the state in protecting their rights.
This is particularly significant when considering that abuse of women and children, both inside and outside the home, is often a behaviour that is repeated.
It is the duty of law enforcers and the courts to protect vulnerable members of society, such as abused women and children — but also to ensure that abuse does not continue.
Historically, domestic violence has been what the local NGO Womensnet calls ‘a notoriously unreported crime†— largely because of common perceptions of it being a ‘family matter†not needing state intervention. This, say women’s rights organisations, means that the number of cases reported is likely to be higher than available statistics indicate.
The Constitution and legislation, such as the Domestic Violence Act and the South African Police Service Act, provide the legal basis by which the rights of victims are protected. Significantly, they also place certain legal obligations on the police regarding the manner in which they respond to and manage complaints.
Protocols include assisting victims to find suitable shelter or medical treatment and informing them of their right to lay criminal charges against a perpetrator. Members of the police who are deemed to have acted inadequately in terms of these provisions can be charged with misconduct and reported to the Independent Complaints Directorate, the police oversight body. — Khadija Bradlow