Police
force themselves on sex workers – report
August 23 2012 at 09:00am
By SAPA
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About 70 percent of sex workers have
been abused by police, says a study released in Joburg yesterday.
“The human rights abuse of sex
workers in South Africa is alarming and demands immediate attention,” the Sex
Workers’ Education and Advocacy Taskforce said in the study.
“Sex workers experience violence
during arrest by police officers, who routinely beat them, pepper-spray them
and sexually assault them.”
The study was based on interviews
with 308 sex workers, mostly in Cape Town, by the Women’s Legal Centre. The sex
workers were mostly women, but included men and transgender people.
The report included first-person
narratives from people who recounted being forced to perform oral sex or being
gang-raped by police officers. The study found police officers did not identify
themselves or wear name tags when committing their offences.
Arbitrary arrest was also still
common, despite a 2009 order by the Western Cape High Court that police could
not arrest sex workers unless they intended to prosecute them. Of the sex
workers interviewed, 138 said they had been arrested, but only 21 had ever
appeared in court. – Sapa
