Programme director
Executive mayor of Tshwane
Public Protector
Our visitors from Mozambican Human Rights League
Officials from Health, Justice, South African Police Service (SAPS) and other government departments
Faith based and traditional healers organisations present
Ladies and gentlemen
Thank you for making time from your long weekend to attend this Indaba. We are meeting today to discuss a very important subject that I believe has not received the necessary attention in our society.
We started this year with a shocking incident of the disappearance and gruesome murder of a young girl in Soshanguve, Masego Kgomo. We made the commitment at her funeral that we will do everything in our power to ensure that we protect the rights to life for children and women of our country.
Yesterday, we observed the Human Rights Day remembering the killing of innocent people by the apartheid forces in Sharpeville and Langa in 1960. These are martyrs of our struggle who died so that we can be free and we can enjoy the benefits of a democratic South Africa.
Through the efforts of these martyrs, we now have a Constitution which protects Human Rights for all of us. The right to life is one of the fundamental human rights that we need to protect at all cost. We cannot allow violence and crime to undermine our right to live in a free society and women’s rights to gender equality.
The Ministry for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities has been tasked to lead the campaigns to reduce the levels of violence against women and children. We are intensifying the implementation of the 365 Days of Activism on No Violence against Women and Children. The indaba we are having today is part of the variety of activities that we would engage in to stop violence targeted at women and children.
One form of violence against women and children that has been reported is that of murder and extraction of body parts to be used for “muthi” purposes. This is a difficult crime to address because it is riddled with myths and beliefs. These myths and beliefs have not been studied sufficiently enable those outside of this belief system to understand it.
We would like the traditional healers present here to assist us to unpack these myths for us. We need to understand what drives a person to commit such horrible crimes against women and children. What benefits are believed to be derived from imithi with human body parts as opposed to those derived from plants for instance?
We have organised this indaba to initiate discussions around the witchcraft related human body mutilation and ritual killing of women and girls. We want to address the root causes of these killings and the factors that encourage such crimes. We need to strengthen or reform existing legislation to provide better protection for victims of such crimes and to adequately punish the perpetrators through the criminal and civil justice system.
The challenge we have faced in dealing with this matter is the lack of information and research on this subject. The reporting of cases with the police is also a challenge. If these cases are reported just as murder, we will not be able to track the extent and the trend or pattern of this crime.
We will be engaging with SAPS to find the best way of recording these cases in a manner that will describe the other violations committed in addition to murder. A person who kills and extracts body parts has not committed only murder, but has violated human rights as well. We should have another category of reporting that describes the extra crimes and the motive for such incidents.
These factors should be carried through to the level of prosecution and sentencing. We need to also raise the sensitivity within the criminal justice system to take into consideration the barbaric motives of these crimes and apply appropriate punitive measures. We need to ensure that heaviest sentences possible are imposed on people convicted of these crimes.
There is also another category of crime that we have to respond to, that is those who buy and use the end products. People who use imithi derived from human body parts should also be charged. The Human Tissue Act deals with the handling of human tissues. But we have to find an additional legislative framework that should enable us to deal decisively with those who buy these body parts and imithi derived from them.
Basically, our law enforcement measures have to respond across the board. We need to act against those who kill and extract body parts, those who buy or circulate them and those who use medicines produced from these body parts. I am glad that today we will also receive a presentation on the study of this practice and trafficking between Mozambique and South Africa. Indeed, this presentation is important in broadening our understanding of the challenge as it relates directly to the problem of human trafficking.
As the Ministry for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities, we want to work with all stakeholders to raise awareness about these crimes at all levels. We want to raise the awareness of the community to increase reporting of the cases and encourage our people to assist the police in resolving these crimes.
The community awareness campaign should also discourage ordinary members of the community from engaging in witch hunt. We cannot allow the attack on people, mainly older women, on suspicion that they are engaging in witchcraft. We need the support of traditional healers in this regard. Healers should not incite violence by declaring that certain people are witches.
Government has as its top priority, the strategy to combat crime. Contact crimes between people who know each other contribute significantly to our high crime statistics. We have to work together with traditional healers to ensure that we do not incite these crimes.
I must say that this government believes in the protection and promotion of African traditional knowledge of which traditional healers are one of the main custodians. Our cultural rights and beliefs as Africans are entrenched in our Constitution and they need to be protected.
Through the Department of Health, there is recognition of the role of traditional medicine in the promotion of good health in our society. Traditional healers are represented in South African National AIDS Council along with other sectors because we believe they have an important role to play in the country’s response to HIV and AIDS. All of these reflect the respect we have for traditional healing.
I hope we will be able to come out of this indaba with decisions on what we need to do to prevent these crimes. We need to ensure that both those who kill and extract body parts and those who buy these body parts and imithi derived from them are prosecuted.
From our side as the Ministry for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities, we will ensure all relevant departments support a collaborative efforts to address this challenge. Those departments certainly include Health, the Criminal Justice cluster and other relevant state agencies.
Once again, thank you very much for making time to attend this indaba. I am certain that we will be able to find the best measures to protect our people against crime and uphold the integrity of the traditional healing practice.
Thank you
Issued by: Ministry for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities
22 March 2010
