Seven sex workers claim police raped them after recent Abuja raid on red light district

ABOUT seven of the ladies recently arrested in Abuja and convicted by a mobile court for prostitution have alleged that policemen attached to the Utako and Gwarimpa police stations raped and physically assaulted them while they were in custody.

Earlier this week, the Nigerian Police Force and the Federal Capital Territory Administration mounted raids on several parts of Abuja, rounded up women suspected to be sex workers. They were arraigned before a mobile court and convicted but now several of them have claimed that the police compelled them to plead guilty and they were raped while in detention.

One of the ladies said after their arrest at a night club and a hotel, that the police threw them into a cell and repeatedly tear-gassed them. She explained that a policeman attached to the Utako Police station, who was simply identified as Yellow, hit her with a baton and also flogged her with a horse whip several times, injuring her arm and face in the process.

Her explanations were also corroborated by her co-convicts who lamented the alleged emotional abuse and physical torture they suffered while in detention. Another victim, who claimed to have been arrested at a shopping plaza, said the policemen attached to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) ministerial task force raped her when she could not pay them.

She added: “Three of us were brought out of the van and raped by the policemen because we had no money to give them. We were raped behind the National War College, Abuja as they pushed me to the ground and held me there while one of them raped me.

"He didn’t wear a condom. The other girls were also raped by two others, one of who used a pure water sachet as condom.”

Another victim said: “I was invited to a birthday party at an apartment in a hotel. I came to the reception to get water and a woman suddenly held my hands and pushed me out of the hotel and after that I saw a lot of people with cameras and some with mobile phones taking my pictures and shooting a video of the arrest.

“They took me to Zone Six police station and from there to the Utako police station. I was on my period and I begged a policewoman to help me with a pad but she refused and we were not allowed to make phone calls to our family members."

Activist, Dorothy Njemanze, who narrated her experience in the hands of policemen who allegedly molested her in the past, added that she was awarded N6m damages by the court in 2017. However, she lamented the fact that the federal government had refused to pay the award.