Women who are in abusive relationships should leave and no police station must turn them away, Police Minister Fikile Mbalula said in Elsie’s River on Thursday.
“Once a boyfriend klaps [smacks] you, you must run away,” he told a packed Adriaanse Civic Hall – the same venue where the memorial service for 3-year-old murder victim Courtney Pieters took place.
“Yes!” the women in the audience called out in reply.
“You are going to put up with that until you see death,” Mbalula said.
He said he had ordered that no police station or officer should turn an abused woman away.
Mbalula’s comments come amid mounting concern over the murder of women such as Karabo Mokoena, allegedly at the hands of her boyfriend Sandile Mantsoe.
Mbalula was officially handing a satellite police station to the community, after complaints that police were not responding to crime.