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The Democratic Alliance (DA) applauds today's announcement that Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) units will be reintroduced. The DA has repeatedly, since 2006, advocated the reintroduction of FCS units, even while the ANC has set about centralising the entire Police Service, and disbanding specialised and semi-autonomous units. These specialised units are central to our safety and security policy framework, and their return is well overdue.

When the decision to disband the FCS units was announced in 2006, the DA's Mike Waters stated: "The DA is appalled at this decision. Once again, the government's promise of making crimes against women and children a top priority ring hollow. The Minister for Safety and Security must urgently reconsider this step." In 2007, the DA published the findings if its own survey which demonstrated that in shutting down the units, victims of child, family and sexual violence had been let down and crime situation against women and children had been exacerbated. Subsequently, a RAPCAN study released in March of this year, vindicated the DA's position and confirmed that shutting down FCS units had been a complete failure and that the current situation, "represents an absence of political will in government and the SAPS in relation to the prioritization of victims, especially in terms of crimes against women and children."

Now the reply to a Democratic Alliance parliamentary question has revealed the true extent of the damage done by years of misguided policy making by the ANC. The reply shows that four children are murdered in South Africa every day, and that child murders are up 31% since the FCS Units were disbanded in 2006. Prior to this decision, child murders in South Africa were decreasing - to 1,075 in 2005/06. They have increased every year subsequently - to 1,152 in 2006/07, and then up by 22.4% in the last year to 1,410.

This demonstrates just how comprehensively ANC policy has failed. The decision to disband the FCS Units formed part of the ANC's attempts to centralise all departments of the Police Service under the National Police Commissioner - even though every study at the time, as well as international best practice, mandated the expansion, not dismantling of specialised units of this nature. The ANC, as it does with all its policy, put its own agenda ahead of the agenda of all South Africans.
Nonetheless, the ANC's u-turn on this matter is to be welcomed, as it is a decision that will genuinely benefit our attempts to address the ongoing scourge of crime in South Africa.