Gender commission wants probe into treatment of looters
The Commission for Gender Equality is calling for an investigation into the alleged inhumane treatment of some looters during the unrest.
It says it has seen several videos on social media where people, including the elderly and children, were mistreated in both KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Spokesperson Javu Baloyi says while the commission does not condone any form of stealing, they cannot turn a blind eye.
He says in one of the videos a group of women were made to swim in what looked like water or liquor that had been spilled.
Baloyi says the law must be applied but not in the manner in which people's dignity and integrity is not respected.
READ: Ramaphosa must intervene in SA's airline crisis: OUTA
"We are not taking the side of the looters, we are taking the side of the human rights approach that in every element there's a human rights to be respected.
"The responsibilities of them, those who are supposed to be law enforcers, it ends somewhere else.
"It doesn't go beyond saying you find me carrying a bag of mealie-meal and then you say can you start swimming here? I caught you. No, arrested the person you don't have to same them in the public."
