SHAME ON YOU MADAM COP

WITH Swaziland given a few months to earn a squeaky clean reputation at the international Labour Organisation ILO as one that fully respects workers rights, a female police officer has decided we deserve to remain in the special paragraph. She has allegedly ordered a male junior to strip and show her his manhood to confirm if he was indeed suffering from any ailment, after submitting a sick sheet!

This alleged gross humiliation of the male police officer by his female superior, which is shocking to say the least, occurred at the police headquarters less than two months ago. She is still at work while we are told the matter is being handled by superiors.
Calling for her resignation is a complete waste of time. Just as in all other matters of police probing police, it will remain under investigation for many moons to come. Many will agree that our confidence in police being able to police themselves is below zero.  There are too numerous incidents to count. Even the human rights activists have given up protesting such incidents. At best, we can expect a promotion on transfer for the female superintendent, while the poor officer may as well forget about promotion for the next decade now that his matter has gone public.

We’ve heard of extreme measures of security checks, where people get searched every inch of their bodies because of the brazen nature of theft or smuggling of goods, but not this. Where was the security concern over an officer being sick?
Was he such an unreliable officer that everything he said had to be proved beyond reasonable doubt? A sick sheet is a legal government document and ought to be enough to protect the rights of the sick officer. Or do such things as sick sheets not apply in the police force? At a labour level, it really sets the country back donkey years, after so much hard work has been put into improving the treatment of employees in the workplace locally.

Gone are the days where male security guards would ‘fondle’ female workers at knock-off time, to ensure nothing was stolen.  Shopping centres are also more sensitive to shoplifting suspects and have female security personnel searching female customers. Even male doctors are expected to have female nurses present when attending to private areas of female patients.

At constitutional level, the dignity of every citizen is now protected by law. So where does madam supervisor cop come from? How can she be not aware that her act could get Swaziland kicked right back into the special paragraph at the International Labour Organisation(ILO), where we’ve just been temporarily granted exit because of signs that the country is beginning to respect internationally accepted labour laws? We were put there partly because of police actions.
There is one thing that she should understand. Sick sheets have to be respected, even if supervisors suspect they are not genuine. If she suspected foul play and needed to satisfy herself, she could have easily called the hospital or clinic to confirm if a sick sheet was issued to the officer, but not to enquire what the officer was treated for. Trying to act tough in a male dominated environment in order to garner respect is not the way to go. She can be assured of one thing though; nobody will want to get sick ‘down there’ while under her supervision. However, this could lead to officers ‘dying on the job’, because they are too afraid to go to hospital.

Then again, there could be more to this incident than meets the eye. We need to start asking what other atrocities are taking place behind the closed blue doors in the police service, that warrant an independent investigation. For all we know madam supervisor could have been conducting a normal or routine check as a form of acceptable discipline.
We could soon be exposed to incidents of male officers inspecting the genitals of female juniors in more or less the same way, if not worse. The Labour and Social Security Minister as well as Health Minister owe the Prime Minister’s office, which is in charge of the police, a visit to protest this inhumane act and demand that something be done to the officer to save this country from any further embarrassment. Not only that, but also from possible lawsuits from the humiliated officer, who definitely needs counselling after being subjected to this extreme degree of humiliation.

BREXIT and SADC

So now we have a European Union (EU) without Britain, following the June 23 referendum. This should provide plenty food for thought for SADC and the African continent which is moving towards an EU form of integration.
So why didn’t it work for Britain? For us, should we even begin to imagine life without South Africa in SADC and what the repercussions of this would be? How would we cope? The best answer to that question is to strengthen the local economy to a level where it can withstand economic shocks, so that we never have to worry about who enters or who leaves our trading blocs.

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