A rape case is opened against a police officer every three days in South Africa

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) recorded 332 gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) cases committed by police officers during 2025/26.

This includes 116 alleged cases of rape, equating to one rape committed by a police officer being reported every three days in South Africa.

This is an increase from the 95 cases of alleged rape committed by police officers that IPID recorded the year prior.

Of the 116 alleged rape cases reported in 2025/26, 44 of them involved officers who were off-duty, while the remaining 72 cases involved officers who were on duty.

This means that a police officer on active duty allegedly committed an act of rape every five days over the course of the previous year.

Member of Parliament Lisa-Maré Schickerling described the increasing prevalence of alleged rapes involving police officers as “unacceptable”.

She called on the leaders of South Africa’s law enforcement agencies to immediately suspend all officers accused of rape, femicide, and all other forms of gender-based violence.

Schickerling also called for urgent and thorough investigations into all allegations, and for all officers found to be guilty to be immediately dismissed.

“The people of South Africa cannot be expected to trust police officers to protect them from violence while officers themselves are accused of rape and other forms of GBVF,” Schickerling said.

“And police officers who commit crimes themselves must know that they will be prosecuted and will be punished.”

Schickerling said she would write a letter to Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia, calling for him to provide a full account of the actions being taken against officers implicated in these crimes.

This includes details on how many officers have been suspended to date, as well as how many have been dismissed or convicted, or remain in active service.

Schickerling’s letter will also call on Cachalia to improve how the South African Police Service (SAPS) investigates and deals with accused officers.

“We need to see an overhaul in the culture, leadership systems, and management of officers to address this, along with criminal prosecution of the offenders themselves,” Schickerling said.

“Cachalia must restore law and order internally in the police. It cannot be that facing a serious scourge of murder and rape of women, police themselves are implicated in one rape every three days.”

South Africa is currently facing a wave of increased anti-GBVF sentiment after 12 women were found to have been murdered across the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since July.

President Cyril Ramaphosa condemned the killings in a national address on 29 September, and ordered increased governmental efforts to tackle GBVF.