Lakes police harass women and men for their dress and hair

By Manyang Mayom

January 14, 2011 (RUMBEK) – Police in Rumbek, the capital of Lakes state in Southern Sudan beat up women who wearing trousers and young men with long hair on Friday. Lakes state police in forcibly cut the hair of men with long hair and cut women’s trousers while they were still wearing them.

After the incidents the state government, which is headed by governor Chol Tong Mayay, has not provided any details on who ordered the citizens to be harassed. Those affected have adopted, what some locals describe as, an East African lifestyle in the town.

According to the commissioner of Rumbek Central County, Matur Majok Magol intervenes telling local polices to leave market after they had carried out a five hour operation of cutting men’s hair and the trousers of women, disturbing the hundreds of market goers.

Magol told Sudan Tribune that the Lakes state police commissioner had not informed him of the operation, describing the events as a “very big bombshell to me”. He said that he ordered police to leave the market as soon as he discovered what was happening. After the police had left the market he went to see police commissioner Saed Chawul Lom in his office, who denied he had given orders for the police to cut the hair and trousers of people in the market.

The actions of the police have been criticized, especially as they come while the south is conducting a referendum on independence.

Lakes state advisor for Gender and Human Right Affairs, Adak Costa Mapuor, said “injustice to democracy across South Sudan must to be stopped strength away from now as we are beginning the new nation building of Southern Sudan government by respecting all rights of people including our animals as well our environment.”

Costa said: “I need all our law reinforcement agencies from wherever they are to respect the rights of each everyone in South Sudan territory to be value with high respect including our animals and environment – we are in new face of constructing a good nation which will be governed by law and human values”.

A female student, Akol Rilpuou, had arrived to spend some of her holiday in Rumbek and vote in the southern referendum when police surrounded her in the market began to cut at her clothes.

She says she had not been informed of any local order that criminalized wearing trousers and had felt “scared” by the police and regretted coming to Rumbek.

“I thought that this ruling state government was elected [so it] could respect peoples rights because we all have voted this government into power to respect our rights. I need to tell our government that rights of human beings are important,” she told Sudan Tribune.

This is not the first time Lakes state government had acted in such a way. During the term of former governor Daniel Awet Akot, 2006 to 2009, women and young people were often beaten up by military forces loyal to Bol Akot Bol. Women were prohibited from riding bicycles and wearing trousers without reasons being provided.

Youth leaders from various youth organization across Lakes state are campaigning to discourage new customary law which sentence men to ten years imprisonment if the make a girl pregnant outside of marriage.

So far Lakes state lawmakers have overlooked the youth’s demands.

(ST)