The following letter is an open letter I have written to various newspapers today in the wake of the brutal attack and murder of Anene Booysens, aged 17, last week.
The brutal attack and murder of yet another innocent young South African girl, brings to mind the evocative words of Chris Asplen, an International DNA Expert who after visiting our country, wrote an editorial in several newspapers in June 2011 [Gauteng (Saturday Star, 11 June 2011) , KZN (The Witness, 10 June 2011) and the Western Cape (Sunday Argus, 5 June 2011)]. Read the full article here
Mr Asplen has helped over 35 countries realise the potential of DNA technology to protect victims — mostly women and children — from the horrors of rape. In that article, he highlighted the fact that the most important factor influencing the potential effect of DNA in any criminal justice system is what the law allows you to do with it and that nowhere is that dynamic more tragically clear than in South Africa. At that time, Mr Asplen bemoaned that the politicians in the South African Parliament had, ten years since his first visit to our country, STILL failed to give police the legal authority to save literally thousands upon thousands of lives with DNA. Make that twelve years later, and Mr Asplen would be horrified to learn that South Africa has STILL NOT, in contrast with over more than 50 countries around the world, passed the DNA Bill which would allow for the establishment of a forensic DNA database.
Reading that editorial now, his words are chilling in the wake of the rape, mutilation and murder of Anene Booysen, aged 17, last week:
Anene Booysen
“As someone who works regularly in other peoples’ countries, I don’t “call out” or criticise foreign officials easily or often. But on a scale unequaled anywhere else on earth, hundreds of thousands of children’s lives are sacrificed because of the failure to act by politicians in South Africa. The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee responsible for the legislation that would give police the ability to immediately begin taking rapists off the street has avoided acting on the law for years. The legislation sits in Committee while the worst sexual violence statistics in the world continue to pile up. Except they are not really statistics. They are terrified woman and little girls staring into the face of horrific violence and evil while they are likely infected with HIV – three more of them just in the time it took you to read this article. “
The DNA Project has been fighting tirelessly for the implementation of this DNA Bill for the past 4 years. What is worse, is that a perfectly good draft DNA Bill, which has been extensively reviewed, debated, translated, made into policy and reviewed again, is waiting in the wings of Parliament to be adopted by Cabinet to be reviewed (yes, again!) by the Portfolio Committee on Police before it can be passed. But, without any political will to ensure that this legislation is promulgated, and urgently, who knows how many more years Mr Asplen will lament on this tragic state of affairs in our country. It is accepted worldwide that when it comes to fighting back against serial rapists there is nothing better at getting rapists off the street, at protecting young girls from rape, than DNA databases: so why are we not doing it here? Because we don’t yet have the laws which will give us the power to fight back.
Vanessa Lynch outside Parliament, Cape Town
In the meantime, convicted offenders continue to be released without having their DNA Profiles taken and entered onto the DNA Database, suspects of violent crimes are not routinely profiled because it is not mandatory to do so and our existing Database is hampered by the fact that it cannot be used as a criminal intelligence tool because we do not have the legislation to allow us to expand the DNA database for this purpose. With our high rate of recidivism in SA, we are wasting a valuable opportunity to identify repeat offenders at an earlier stage and get them off the streets, and sadly, it is costing people their lives.
How many more graves do we have to dig?
What compounds this tragedy further is that we have the necessary infrastructure to leverage the power of DNA technology in South Africa. What more excuses do we need to hear? How many more graves do we need to dig? There is nowhere else to place the wreath of responsibility other than around the neck of our politicians who are preventing this critical Bill from being enacted. Let’s hope they don’t have to place a wreath on the grave of their daughter or loved one to move them into action.
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Vanessa Lynch
Executive Director
The DNA Project | fighting crime with science
Cape Town
E-mail: vanessalynch@dnaproject.co.za // Web: www.dnaproject.co.za
