Attacks on students have filled our newspapers in recent weeks reflecting the outrage of parents and community alike that the University of Stellenbosch (US) is becoming a soft target for criminals endangering the safety of their children. I feel sorry for the university because its campus is porous, given its integration into the broader community of Stellenbosch. It is indeed difficult to secure its boundaries.
A number of years ago I was mugged at UCT at 11am on a Saturday morning while taking my uncle from Germany to the Irma Stern museum. The offender pretended to be a student; walked towards me while talking on the cell phone and suddenly, started attacking me, grabbing my bag and beating the daylights out of me. While I felt annoyed at the university, I knew it was difficult to barricade the university from the Main Road, and from people who wish to take a short cut through the campus.
But there are remedies that universities should consider and the US in particular and learn from big universities abroad how they do it. An additional 100 CCTV cameras around the town and a mobile security kiosk are to be welcomed. But these are clearly not enough and US would do well to emulate Universities in America, which are also as embedded in university towns as is the US. These universities have taken a series of measures to make students safer.
For example, some universities have their own police force. At Harvard for example, when each student arrives they have to sign up with the campus police and register their laptop. The latter gets fitted with some identity gadget that will trace it should it get stolen or lost.
All over the campus are panic buttons connected to the campus police, and the cherry on the cake, is the right of students to ask police to accompany them to late-night functions or home afterwards. All of this in addition to the usual CCTV cameras and access control make the world of difference to student life and the freedom they have to enjoy the best time of their lives. At some universities in New York when strangers enter the residence, they are stopped by a security guard, who takes their driver's license, records their names, ensures that they leave by 10pm, and keeps their license until they leave.
At all universities, women students are particularly vulnerable as we saw with the threats of kidnap and hijacks hanging over their heads during recent incidents. Rape and sexual violence have always been part of university life, crimes often hidden from view yet very prevalent. These attacks should propel all residences on- and off-campus into action with the university security apparatus to work together on a united strategy to keep threats out.
That MEC of Security Dan Plato has been to the university to speak to the university authorities is highly commendable. With the Mayor's office and all the relevant sectors, US should be able to create a formidable phalanx of security against any thug wanting to ruin the good name of the university.
A major lesson arising from these unfortunate incidents is the need for the university to be vigilant at all times. There are times when security becomes slack until such unfortunate cases happen. Security only works when the authorities make safety a priority at all times. Given the ineptitude of the police, communities should take action and demand protection from the police. This is what our taxes are for. Given the very little that we get in return for our taxes, this basic human right should be protected with the full might of the law.
This article first appeared in Die Burger.
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