WESTERN Cape MEC for community safety Dan Plato is to convene a "safety summit" later this month in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, in a bid to increase safety in the township.
This follows a protest by about 300 people outside the Western Cape legislature on Tuesday over the cases of 10 lesbians who were raped in the province.
The perpetrators have allegedly never been successfully prosecuted.
Carrying placards reading "The criminal justice system in Khayelitsha has failed us", and singing noba besidlwengula, besibulala siyaya (even if they rape, kills us we are going forward), the Social Justice Coalition, Treatment Action Campaign, Free Gender, Triangle Project, Ndifuna Ukwazi, Women's Legal Centre and Equal Education handed over a memorandum to Plato.
Plato said yesterday he shared the concerns of civil society organisations as well as the community.
He said: "I am currently organising a safety summit in Khayelitsha for later this month."
Plato said their focus was to increase safety in the township in a holistic manner and role players from national, provincial and local government departments, as well as civil society organisations, would be invited to participate.
The MEC said he would also invite representatives from the national departments responsible for the criminal justice system and with operational control over the South African PoliceService.
"This will provide an opportunity for the community of Khayelitsha to raise identified concerns directly with the departments involved," he said.
The provincial police commissioner, the regional commissioner of correctional services, the director of public prosecutions in Western Cape and Western Cape regional head of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development would be invited to participate in the safety summit, theMEC said.
He said since taking office, he had engaged with various community entities in Khayelitsha and the greater Cape Town area.
"There have been resounding calls for the better delivery of justice by the courts, as well as improved and increased policing," he said.
Plato said court backlogs remained a constraint to delivering justice and the lack of properly managed sentencing plans and poor quality rehabilitation programmes for inmates often meant that offenders fell back into a life of crime.