The scourge of crime and gender-based violence (GBV) in the Universities led the Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Buti Manamela, and the SAPS to launch the Campus Community Forum in Walter Sisulu University (WSU), last week.
This launch was held at the Walter Sisulu University (WSU), Zamukulungisa Site in Mthatha.
Manamela said one of the department’s key objectives is to eradicate crime and GBV and other life-threatening practices around Mthatha.
He said most of the universities that are based in townships are also victims of crime, which is why they are establishing this forum.
“All over the country we will be paying much attention to our universities to ensure that they are safe at all times.
“We thank the police who have made a commitment to work with us so that we can strengthen campus security.
“Our students are a resource of the country, so they need to be protected at all times.”
The institutional president of the student representative council (SRC), Batandwa Mangisa, stated that their universities have a high rate of crime. “Students are always victims of crime here. They are not safe at all, so we are happy that the department has come up with this initiative.
“You find that some of them are afraid even to open cases, but now that we have launched this forum it will be much easier,” said Mangisa.
He added that even those students who are living outside the campus are victims. According to Mangisa some of them are held at gunpoint and robbed of their laptops and other valuables. He said the issue of violence also plays a major role.
Major General Thokozani Matontsi said that the intention of launching this forum was to strengthen the police’s relationship with universities, and to ensure that there is clear understanding between the police and the students.
“We want to strength this relationship so that it could be easy for us to attend to the issues when there is need to do so. One of the critical things that we are going to do and we have already done some of them, is to make sure that we establish campus structures so that we have a structure that can discuss and address the challenges facing the campus, without escalating to violence,” said Matontsi.
He added that it was challenging to get victims talking about GBV and other crimes. Matontsi added that they hoped they would now manage to address those challenges in the universities.
“As the police, we cannot address those issues alone unless the students are involved and committed to finding solutions. We are intending to launch this forum at all the universities.”
