Written by Patience Nyangove
Thursday, 03 September 2009
NAMIBIAN police have leashed a reign of terror on sex workers allegedly raping and sexually assaulting them among other sordid crimes, a report on female, male and trans sex workers human rights says.
The report was also compiled in two other countries, Botswana and South Africa by Jayne Arnott and Anna-Louise Crago.
According to the report many sex workers interviewed during the compilation of the report claimed they had been raped and sexually assaulted by police officers.
“The police have beaten me four times. They hit my friend with their car. Her head was hurt and she isn’t able to talk anymore,” said Salinde, a street sex worker, in Windhoek.
The report says trans sex (men who dress as women and women who dress as men) workers have also been allegedly raped by the police.
According to Amor, a trans sex worker from Windhoek, the police first arrest them and demand sex.
“The police arrest us, beat us up and rape us. But you can’t do anything against it. They say you are a sex worker-what were you doing? I saw it happen to several of my sex worker friends: ladies, moffis and lesbians.”
The sex workers also allege that in addition to being forced to have unsafe sex, the police officers also confiscate or destroy their condoms thereby undermining the sex workers’ ability to protect themselves.
“The police will take away your condoms. The say (we) don’t deserve to be f*** with condoms,” said Martin also from Windhoek.
The sex workers also alleged they are being unlawfully arrested and extorted of their hard earned money by police officers.
Priscilla, a street based sex worker from Windhoek claims in the report that she spent several months in jail for failure to pay extortion money.
“(The police) arrested me again in January and kept me in jail until March. I had no one to call who could pay N$300 to get me out. So they kept me that whole time, with just (a little) porridge and two slices of bread a day.”
Priscilla also alleged that police officers in Windhoek unlawfully detain them in order to perpetrate sexual violence.
“The (police) arrest us and take us to their homes and rape us there. Then they release (us) on bail,” she said.
The report also notes that police officers in Windhoek have devised methods to humiliate trans sex people such as forcing them to strip naked in public. Martin, a trans sex worker in Windhoek, shared her recollections of finding a friend, Carolyn, another trans sex worker, badly beaten by the police.
“They had ripped her clothes off. It aggravates them more that you are a man so they give you a heavier beating.”
The report also notes that if detained, trans sex workers are systematically submitted to violence by being locked in jail with men.
“The men in prison beat you. You are locked up in a cell with 20 or 30 men. They take you into the shower and rape you. Our President says “no condoms in prison” so everything goes down with no condoms. But we feel like women ourselves, so we don’t see why they don’t put us with the other women in the cells. We are not a danger to them,” said Catherine, a trans-sex worker in Windhoek.
Efforts to get a comment from the police proved fruitless as the police spokesperson Hofni Hamufungu’s mobile was not reachable at the time of going to press.
Picture taken from feministe.us
No comments:
Post a Comment