South Africans have become accustomed to hearing troubling testimony before commissions of inquiry. But the testimony emerging out of the Madlanga commission and the parliamentary ad hoc committee, both established to investigate allegations made by Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, is collectively astounding and outrageous.
South Africans are gaining exceptional insights into the operations of criminal networks that have embedded themselves into the highest echelons of the criminal justice system.
A key revelation, novel even for the unprecedented drama of the two inquiries, was a casual statement by a senior law-enforcement official that one of South Africa’s most egregious crime pandemics is beyond the reach of policing.
During his last day of testimony before the Madlanga commission, the head of the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal, Maj-Gen Lesetja Senona, sought to explain how half a ton of seized cocaine under the Hawks’ custody in Port Shepstone came to be stolen after a warehouse break-in. Confronted with evidence suggesting that knowledge of the storage location had spread beyond authorised officials, he offered an analogy that should alarm anyone concerned with justice and constitutional governance.
“You can’t police rape,” he said, “because it happens within and elsewhere.”
Some might dismiss this as a minor linguistic error. But this was not merely a poor turn of phrase. It was a revealing statement of institutional mindset.
The Hawks is mandated to investigate serious and priority crimes, which may include human trafficking syndicates, organised sexual exploitation networks and systemic corruption linked to such crimes.
A Human Sciences Research Council study estimates that about 250,000 people in South Africa may be living in conditions of modern slavery. These include human trafficking, forced labour and sexual exploitation.
South African law recognises rape as one of the most serious crimes. It is investigated, prosecuted and adjudicated daily. The state has built specialised sexual offences courts, dedicated investigative units and survivor-centred protocols precisely because rape is not something we accept as inevitable or unpoliceable.
South African law recognises rape as one of the most serious crimes. It is investigated, prosecuted and adjudicated daily. The state has built specialised sexual offences courts, dedicated investigative units and survivor-centred protocols precisely because rape is not something we accept as inevitable or unpoliceable.
To suggest otherwise is not only factually incorrect, it is conceptually dangerous. When uttered by the head of the Hawks, the statement is frightening.
While the state may not be able to prevent every crime before it occurs, it bears a constitutional duty to investigate crimes and hold perpetrators accountable. That duty applies to rape as much as to organised crime.
By framing rape as something that “cannot be policed”, the head of the Hawks advances a logic that excuses institutional failure. If taken seriously, this reasoning would absolve the police of responsibility for virtually any failure: murders happen, robberies happen, corruption happens; therefore, policing them is inherently futile.
That would not be law enforcement. It would be abdication.
Words matter. But words spoken under oath matter even more. They reveal how leaders understand their roles, limits, and responsibilities. When the head of a priority crimes unit reaches for rape to explain why sensitive information leaks are “difficult to manage”, two troubling messages are sent.
First, rape is implicitly framed as an unavoidable feature of social life rather than a crime the state is duty-bound to confront with seriousness and resolve. In a country grappling with endemic gender-based violence, this framing undermines survivor-centred justice and decades of hard-fought legal reform.
Second, institutional failure is normalised. Information leaks, security breaches and breakdowns of command structures are presented as unfortunate but inevitable, rather than as signals of governance failure requiring consequences.
This is precisely the opposite of what constitutional policing demands. Leadership in law enforcement exists not to explain away failure, but to prevent it, respond to it, and be accountable when it occurs.
It would be tempting to dismiss the remark as an ill-chosen example under pressure. But commissions of inquiry exist to interrogate patterns, not excuses.
South Africans deserve a criminal justice system that believes policing matters, that accountability matters and that words matter. Especially when those words concern crimes that have historically been minimised, ignored, or normalised.
The timing of this statement makes it even more concerning. Last year, the president declared gender-based violence and femicide a national disaster. While the declaration has not yet been gazetted, its meaning is unambiguous: GBVF must be prioritised, extraordinary resources must be mobilised, and every arm of the state, especially the police, has a critical role to play.
Against that backdrop, the assertion by the head of the Hawks signals to survivors of rape how the leadership of a priority crimes unit understands the crime committed against them. It suggests not urgency, not resolve, but resignation.
“You can’t police rape” is not just wrong. Coming from the head of the Hawks, it is a statement that should concern us all.
- Philile Ntuli is a commissioner of the South African Human Rights Commission. Her focal areas include land rights, the right to food, and the national preventive mechanism
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