Cop arrested for rape
hailed as victory
August 13 2013 at 10:10am
By Daneel Knoetze
By Daneel Knoetze
euters
File
photo
Cape Town - Sex
worker activists have hailed as a rare victory the speedy arrest of a Cape Town
police captain accused of raping a sex worker.
They said that
most such cases went unreported - despite a pilot education drive rolled out in
the province to sensitise officers in dealing with sex workers.
The Independent
Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) on Monday confirmed that a captain in
the Western Cape police’s Special Task Force had been arrested for rape last
week. He is the fifth police officer to be arrested for rape in the province
since July 10.
Ipid spokesman
Moses Dlamini said a 26-year-old woman had been picked up by the policeman in a
private vehicle in the early hours of August 3.
After agreeing
on a price for oral sex, the policeman allegedly changed his mind and demanded
sex. When the woman refused, he assaulted and raped her. After the rape, the
woman escaped and later reported the vehicle’s registration number to the
police.
Five days
later, the policeman was arrested and detained at Claremont police station. He
appeared in Wynberg Magistrate’s Court on charges of rape and assault on
Monday.
Western Cape
NPA spokesman Eric Ntabazalila said the police officer was granted bail of R1
000 and ordered not to make contact with the complainant.
“We are
pleasantly surprised,” said Ntokozo Yingwana of the Sex Workers Education and
Advocacy Taskforce (Sweat), adding that often sex workers were too afraid to
report rapes. In this case it appeared that the woman did not know the alleged
rapist was a police officer.
“Usually there
is a tardiness in these investigations, and we have to do a lot of canvassing
before we see an arrest. In this case we came to hear about the rape only after
the arrest had already been effected. This should be precedent setting.”
Sweat have
vowed to picket at the man’s future court appearances.
Pickets of this
sort were more than a show of solidarity and could have a discernible impact on
how seriously a case was taken by prosecutors and the Justice Department, said
Sithuthukile Mkhize of the Women’s Legal Centre. “Unfortunately, sex workers
are often marginalised and cases can come to naught if they do not have the
backing of organisations, activists and members of the public who continue to
lobby on their behalf,” she said.
In August last
year, the Women’s Legal Centre and Sweat published a report on the abusive
relationship between police and sex workers in South Africa. The report found
that 70 percent of the 308 sex workers who were interviewed had experienced
abuses at the hands of police officers.
These included
cases of rape, sexual assault, assault and police corruption - abuses which
were found to be “systemic and widespread” in the police’s dealings with sex
workers.
Following the
report, Deputy Minister of Police Makhotso Magdalene Sotyu visited Sweat’s Cape
Town offices and allowed the organisation to run training workshops at police
stations.
Ninety-five
officers have since received the training, and “sensitisation pamphlets” are
due to be distributed at police stations. Sweat hopes that the training
programme can be rolled out to other provinces in the coming months.
daneel.knoetze@inl.co.za
Cape Argus
