Date Rape: A Headache For Mogoditshane Police

Pini Bothoko | Monday January 27, 2020 17:02

 

Rape has been a nightmare to the community over the years with rapists causing havoc at the peri-urban village.

Acting station commander of Mogoditshane police, assistant superintendent Zachariah Tshenyego identified most of the cases as date rape. He said the perpetrators are often casual friends, or individuals who victims are familiar with.

He revealed that in a space of 17 days, from 20th December 20, 2019 to January 5 this year, they recorded 14 rape cases. 

Tshenyego stated that usually the perpetrators would on the fateful day had spent some time with their victims, entertaining them, showering them with goodies, and later demanded sex in return.

“Out of the 14 registered cases, two have been registered at court while 12 cases are still under investigations. We do not have any case that has been withdrawn as it has been the case in some rape cases,” he said.

He added that they have taken blood samples to the laboratory in some cases for further investigations. He said some cases are considered as cold cases in which they have not yet made arrests.

Tshenyego revealed that of the 14 cases there is only one in which a woman was attacked and raped as compared to those who were raped by the people they would have spent time with. Asked what could be delaying the investigations of these cases, he said in instances where they failed to locate and arrest the suspect they will be forced to take the samples to the lab and match them with those of different cases in an effort to locate the suspect.

“Yes in some cases we at times get lucky and manage to match the blood samples to the ones of a suspect in a different case and we arrest, charge him for the rape offence.”

He however pointed out that investigations of the rape cases were giving the police a headache as the perpetrators would claim to have obtained consent from the victims and even accused them of extortion.

“We have observed with concern that majority of women do not budget for their entertainment. They go to the bars without money to buy themselves alcohol and then they would have not made any plans on how they will return home putting that responsibility on strangers,” he noted.

 Tshenyego advised women to stop depending on strangers they meet at the bars arguing that exposes them to unnecessary risks. He also implored men to respect women, stating that no matter what ‘there should be consent between the two parties’.

He said in their effort to fight the surge in rape cases they have targeted shebeens where most of the cases emanate to sensitise members of the community about rape.

“We have a team of 10 police officers who are currently focusing on shebeens and other entertainment places in our policing area. They hold public forums to educate both men and women more about date rape,” Tshenyego said.