KZN rape crisis centre calls for harsher sentences for rapists

A KZN rape crisis centre has praised the courts for handing down a tough prison sentence to a serial rapist.

The Pinetown Regional Court last week gave 25-year-old Tumelo Khiba six life terms and 35-years imprisonment, for terrorising women in the Pinetown CBD from 2016.

His sentence came after the court heard how he lured women aged between 17 and 23 with the promise of jobs - before raping and robbing them.

DNA analysis linked Khiba to 12 rape cases committed in the same area after he was arrested in January.

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Thora Mansfield of the Pinetown-based Open Door Crisis Centre says the sentence sends a strong message. 

"If we see stricter sentences and that there is a consequence for actions. Because what has happened in the past, you could rape, you could abuse with no consequences. 

"The message that's now going out is that if you commit a crime, regardless of the degree of the crime, there are consequences," she adds. 

"But for us, working with a psychological system, the destruction of a woman's life, for us we say the harsher the sentence, the better.