Scale of Violence in SA intolerable - SAFTU
Recent crime statistics confirm that millions of working-class households continue to live under daily siege from violence, robbery and insecurity
The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) says while recent crime statistics reflect marginal declines across several major crime categories, the “absolute levels of violence remain catastrophically high and reflect the deep social and economic crisis confronting the working class”.
SAFTU’s response comes after last the release of 3rd Quarter crime statistics (October to December 2025) by the Minister of Police last Friday, which reflected “marginal declines” across several major crime categories but still a high number of violent crimes including murder and rape.
According to the SAPS statistics, South Africa recorded:
• 6,953 murders in just three months, an average of 76 people killed every day
• 11,481 rapes approximately 125 rapes every day
• 7,710 attempted murders
• 49,418 cases of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm
• 42,969 residential burglaries
• 5,973 car hijackings
• 6,505 robberies at residential premises
These figures confirm that millions of working-class households continue to live under daily siege from violence, robbery, and insecurity, says SAFTU in a statement.
“Even though murders declined by 8.7%, rape by 2.7%, and car hijackings by 4.1%, these marginal declines do not alter the fundamental reality that South Africa remains engulfed in a deep social crisis.
“At the current rate, South Africa remains on course to record nearly 28,000 murders annually, placing it among the most violent societies in the world outside of active war zones”.
SAFTU also laments the destruction of working-class families driven by mass unemployment, saying the crime crisis reflects the destruction of the economic foundations of working-class families.
According to Statistics South Africa’s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (Q4 2025), approximately 12.4 million people are unemployed on the expanded definition.
This means millions of families have no stable breadwinner capable of sustaining entire households and lifting families out of poverty, says SAFTU.
Historically, working-class families depended on stable employment to provide economic security, social stability, and hope for future generations. That foundation has been systematically destroyed.
SAFTU also notes that without stable breadwinners, family stability collapses, poverty becomes entrenched, social cohesion weakens, young people are abandoned to insecurity and hopelessness and crime thrives in such conditions of exclusion and social breakdown.
Teenage pregnancy also reflects deepening social collapse with approximately 100,000 births annually among teenage mothers aged 15–19, representing approximately 12% of all births nationally. Over the past decade, more than 1.2 million children have been born to teenage mothers.
“Teenage pregnancy is both a consequence and driver of poverty. It often leads to school dropout, lifetime unemployment, and intergenerational poverty.
Children are forced to raise children, reinforcing the vicious cycle of deprivation and social instability.
“The education system is excluding millions and even those who succeed are blocked from further education”.
SAFTU quotes Department of Basic Education figures showing that of
733,198 learners who wrote matric in 2025, 656,601 passed and 278,814 achieved bachelor passes qualifying for university admission.
Yet the post-school education system lacks capacity:
• Public universities can admit only approximately 200,000 new students annually
• TVET colleges admit approximately 300,000–350,000 students annually
“This leaves at least 150,000 to 200,000 matric graduates excluded from tertiary education every year, including many who qualify academically. These young people are pushed directly into unemployment.
“The education system is not functioning as a pathway out of poverty. It is reproducing inequality. Crime is the predictable outcome of structural economic exclusion and cannot be separated from the structure of the South African economy.
“A society that excludes 12.4 million people from employment, sidelines hundreds of thousands of youth from education annually, and concentrates wealth in the hands of a small elite cannot avoid social breakdown.
Crime is a symptom of systemic economic failure”.
SAFTU called for the fundamental restructuring of the economy to meet human needs and create jobs
“SAFTU reiterates its core demand, as articulated in its Section 77 campaign, that the South African economy must be fundamentally overhauled so that it is based on meeting the basic needs of the population, foremost among these is the right to decent work”.
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