DA demands accurate GBVF crime data from Cachalia - IOL

The D has called on Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia to ensure SAPS releases accurate, disaggregated data on crimes against women and children.

The DA has called on Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia to ensure the next crime statistics provide accurate, disaggregated data on crimes against women and children, warning that flawed figures could undermine the government’s response to gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF).

The DA spokesperson on police, Lisa Schickerling, has written to Cachalia demanding that SAPS correct the problems affecting its data and commit to a firm date for releasing corrected figures if it cannot meet the November deadline.

The call comes as government moves to implement President Cyril Ramaphosa’s latest GBVF interventions, including a 60-day audit of unresolved murders, attempted murders, rapes and serious sexual offences involving women and children, as well as a funded plan to address forensic backlogs.

The DA’s demand follows previous concerns raised by Cachalia himself over the integrity of SAPS data on crimes against women and children.

IOL reported in March that Cachalia said SAPS were reviewing crime data systems to prevent errors when cases involving women and children are recorded at police station level.

He acknowledged that the data was not always properly captured and said publishing it in its existing form could mislead the public and policymakers. SAPS was developing a system enhancement, but Cachalia said at the time that there was no definite date for when the improved statistics would be available.

According to the DA, SAPS has since admitted to Parliament that its statistics on crimes against women and children are “inherently inaccurate”, with the data fundamentally flawed and unusable.

The problems include GBV offences being counted more than once, resulting in the number of women and children victims exceeding the total number of victims recorded for certain crimes, including rape.

There are also inconsistencies in recording victims’ ages and sexes and in linking victims to the correct charges.

Schickerling said the problems raised questions about how government could use the statistics to determine where resources were needed.

“How can government properly allocate resources to fight GBVF when the very crime statistics on which any strategy must be based are inherently wrong?” she said.

The DA said the failure to accurately record the data obscured the scale of the GBVF crisis and made it difficult to measure progress, allocate resources effectively and hold SAPS accountable.

GBVF was declared a national crisis in November 2025. 

The DA is calling on Cachalia to ensure the upcoming crime statistics are accurate and free of the identified flaws.

If SAPS cannot meet the November release deadline, Schickerling wants the minister to commit to a specific date by which corrected data will be made available.

The party also wants subsequent crime statistics releases to be prepared using accurate and disaggregated data.

“We further call for all subsequent crime statistics releases to be prepared in the same accurate and disaggregated manner, so that the country can properly understand the scale of GBVF and measure whether government is making progress,” Schickerling said.