Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
18 September 2018
Soccer ladies relish challenge in Potch
Trinity Melakeco (right) in action for the Kovsie women’s soccer team against the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) last year. They will face TUT, the defending champions, on Friday 21 September in Varsity Women’s Football.

The Kovsie women’s soccer team has a tough challenge ahead of them in their quest to reach the semi-finals of Varsity Women’s Football for the first time.

The tournament starts on Thursday 20 September 2018 in Potchefstroom. The Kovsies’ best performance in the competition was in 2016, when they were fifth.

They are in the same group as the University of Johannesburg (UJ), the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), and Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). TUT has dominated Varsity Women's Football, winning four of the five tournaments. TUT and UJ contested the final last year, as well as the University Sport South Africa (USSA) tournament in July.

Kovsie coach, Godfrey Tenoff, says the challenge of playing the top-seeds is one they relish and welcome.

According to him, the ladies will have gained confidence from USSA where they ended sixth, improving by two places from 2017.

“We were satisfied with our performance at USSA. There are so much the players are capable of, but they don’t get the platform to test their talents as often as the men. We only play UJ and TUT once or twice a year, and there are very few teams in our province with that much talent. So, we have to get out more and find opportunities to play against top-teams to put our preparations and methods to the test.”

“We’ve had a good defence all season, led by our captain, Uma Jakalase. This will have to get us through the tournament.”

* The fixtures: 20 Sept vs UKZN; 21 Sept vs. TUT and UJ. The play-off matches are scheduled for Saturday.

News Archive

Head of SA Witness Protection Programme pays UFS a visit
2010-05-04

 
Receiving the Head of the South African Witness Protection Programme are, in front: Prof. Hennie Oosthuizen, Head of the Department of Criminal and Medical Law at the UFS; back: Adv. Beatri Kruger from the UFS Unit for Children’s Rights, Ms Lani Opperman, Member of the Free State Human Trafficking Forum (FHF), Adv. John Welch, Head of the Witness Protection Programme in South Africa; and Lene van Zyl, a LLM student at the UFS who is doing her thesis on human trafficking in body parts.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs


Recently Adv. Beatri Kruger from the Unit for Children’s Rights in the Faculty of Law at the University of the Free State (UFS) invited Adv. John Welch, Head of the Witness Protection Programme in South Africa, to address the Free State Human Trafficking Forum (FHF) on the safe-keeping of victims who are witnesses against human traffickers.

Human trafficking is prevalent in the Free State, especially in Bloemfontein. The Unit for Children’s Rights is one of the founding members of the FHF that was established to take action against and fight the disturbing reality of human trafficking more efficiently.

According to Adv. Kruger the FHF identified the problem of trafficked witnesses being threatened by human trafficker syndicates.

Adv. Welch made some suggestions with regard to the safe-keeping of trafficked victims. He also, with some of the forum members, paid a visit to the areas in Bloemfontein where human trafficking is prevalent as well as to the local shelter for trafficked victims.

Adv. Welch undertook to join forces with the FHF in assisting trafficked victims and the local Witness Protection Programme Office is now a member of the forum.

Since December 2009 members of the FHF managed to disrupt the work of the human trafficking syndicates. “The traffickers have not stopped this inhumane practice but there are indications that they have moved to other buildings in the inner city and even to houses in the suburbs. It was reported to the forum that approximately 27 males suspected of being involved in human trafficking had been arrested, and since they are illegal in the country, they were deported to their countries of origin,” said Adv. Kruger.

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept