The Unemployed Peoples’ Movement Young Women’s Forum marched on the Makhanda police station today after it allegedly ’’rejected’’ a 16-year-old rape victim, then ’’downgraded her case’’ and ’’pepper-sprayed her supporters’’.
Cape Town – The Unemployed Peoples’ Movement Young Women’s Forum marched on a Makhanda police station today after it allegedly ’’rejected’’ a 16-year-old rape victim, then ’’downgraded her case’’ and ’’pepper-sprayed her supporters’’.
’’A 16-year-old girl was raped and when she was taken to the police station in the centre of town, there was only one police officer on duty, who refused to unlock the gate to let her in.’’They told her to go home and call the police, which she did, and a police van duly took her to Settlers Hospital for a rape kit.
’’The survivor and her friends and supporters went back to the police station on Women’s Day to challenge this and the police pepper-sprayed the young girls who had come to support her friend,’’ the forum said.A meeting of the Makhanda community yesterday resolved to support a march by the Unemployed Peoples' Movement Young Women's Forum on the Makhanda police station.