Harare Central Police Station where they were detained over night and then forced to sign admission of guilt forms. They were also forced to pay a fine for allegedly soliciting for the purposes of prostitution.
Harare Central Member of Parliament Murisi Zvizvai, whose constituency covers the Avenues area where the raid took place, has condemned the arbitrary arrests and the violence against the women.
The women’s lawyer is seeking to have the charges and the fines quashed. He asserts the women were not in a public place but in their rooms, so they could not have been “loitering for the purposes of prostitution”.
The charges were brought under Section 4 of the Miscellaneous Offences Act, under which loitering in a public place for the purposes of soliciting for prostitution is an offence.
15.2.2007
0:00
40 women take police to court-(15-02-07)
HARARE - Scores of women arrested in their flats in the Avenues area during a violent police raid by the so-called "cycle patrol" against prostitutes last month are challenging the police in court.
More than 40 women, some of them married, were heavily assaulted during the raid and then taken to
More than 40 women, some of them married, were heavily assaulted during the raid and then taken to