Victim Empowerment Programme to improve social crime prevention strategies

Victim Empowerment Programme to improve social crime prevention strategies

Mpumalanga Department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison will soon have a Victim Empowerment Programme [VEP] Unit, which will focus on supporting victims of crime.

This comes after a call made by the Premier of the province, Mr David Mabuza during his State of the Province Address where he made a call to the department to strengthen victim friendly facilities to provide necessary support to victims of crime.

In his address, the Premier highlighted that although the province has managed to reduce a number of crimes; the scourge of sexual crimes persists and has increased in the past year.

Head of Department, Mr. William Mthombothi says the department will on a contractual basis employ at least 130 assistant VEP coordinators to be deployed in police stations of the province and will work as volunteers who will receive R1 500 stipend on a monthly basis.

“Part of their duties, is to receive and give support to victims of abuse and rape in police stations before they open cases. They are expected to define the victims’ rights and also explain all the processes before SAPS and the courts take over.

Some of the stations, more especially the busy and those in problematic areas will receive the services of these coordinators 24 hours,” says Mthombothi.

He added that the department wanted committed people who will look beyond receiving the stipend but to assist the victims in order not to be subjected to secondary abuse,” adds Mthombothi.

He emphasizes that this programme will not only support the victims but it will come handy in ensuring that perpetrators of sexual abuse are prosecuted.