COURT FINES SECURITY TASK FORCE FOR ALLEGEDLY ARRESTING COMMERCIAL SEX WORKERS

The court judgment followed a fundamental human rights enforcement suit filed by a Non-Governmental Organisation, Lawyers Alert, on behalf of the arrested women by the task force comprising officials of Abuja Environmental Protection Board, Nigeria Police, and Nigerian Army..

“I find and hold that the breaking in and arrest of the applicants by the respondents is an infringement of the applicants’ right to privacy as guaranteed by the Constitution,” the court declared. The law has laid down process and procedure for effective arrest, law enforcement agents and agencies should ensure at all times to follow the laid down guidelines by the law”, the judge declared

The Non-Governmental Organisation, Lawyers Alert had earlier told the court that the officials of the Task Force indecently searched the women and disposed them of their money when they raided their apartments,

Penpushing further reports that, Lawyers Alert said the women were tortured and detained while waiting for a mobile court judge “who will try them for a criminal offence they did not know about”, adding that, “It is worth recalling that this is not the first time the Joint Task Force had come to arrest, detain and release them. It has always been the practice’.

“The women were informed that their arrest owed to their commercial sex work. The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory had a few days before the particular raid promised to rid the Nigeria capital city of sex workers,”

Penpushing also reports that, the Non-Governmental Oranisation(NGO) on its website said 52 women were arrested in this particular raid, while source also informed that, one Constance Nkwocha and 15 others were the applicants in the suit, while the Nigeria police, the Army, Ministry of Federal Capital Territory, and the Abuja Environmental Protection Board were among the respondents..