Five formerly incarcerated women interviewed in the course of a study have reported that male police officers were known to have taken women who were being held for loitering to their homes and forced them to have sex. The Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice and AdvocAid “Woman Wahala Na Prison” report seeks to amplify the voices of the women who participated in the research, and to demonstrate the need to address the structural issues that contribute to women’s imprisonment and then continue to hinder their full enjoyment of rights after their release.
Among other petty offenses, ‘loitering’ carries a sentence of up to one month. Loitering is defined under the Public Order Act 1965 as idling in the street ‘not having any visible means of subsistence, and not giving a good account of himself’.
According to five formerly incarcerated women the researchers interviewed, loitering is disproportionately applied to women who do not comply with traditional gender norms and conservative customs in the way that they dress or act, particularly those suspected of engaging in sex work. This is contrary to international standards, which place positive obligations on States to both eradicate stereotypes and practices that discriminate against women and to protect sex workers, who are particularly vulnerable to abuse. The report stated further that the same formerly incarcerated women claimed that women are arrested simply for walking home alone at night.
“This is what the street does to women, they become hardcore criminals and prostitutes, they don’t care and do not attract sympathy. When a woman displays such attitude, the temptation is to treat them like any other man” according to Legal Aid Board, Kono.
The researchers wrote that Police officers can sometime extort payments or sex from them in return for their release. This they added was also evidenced by a recent documentary produced by AdvocAid. “Abuse may therefore be one of the drivers of the high rate of arrests and persecution of sex workers.” “Women with a lived experience of prison we spoke to, sex workers are at considerable risk of sexual violence at the hands of police, although this was not reported by those surveyed or interviewed in prison.”
A formerly incarcerated woman told the researchers that sexual abuse is very common towards women who are incarcerated for loitering. “An officer will come in and say, If you don’t want to sleep here, I can take you to my house, we spend the night there and tomorrow I will help you with your case. These women don’t really have the freedom to say no. In the morning, the officer will bring the woman back. Some will actually help the woman, but others will simply disappear.” A local NGO representative confirmed to the researchers that they are aware of this happening to one woman who was detained in a police cell.
By Zainab Iyamide Joaque